iTunes App Store: 200 Million App Downloads in Last 45 Days

Apple Inc announced yesterday that 200 million apps have been downloaded from the iTunes App Store since December 5, 2008. That’s quite an accomplishment, considering 300 million had been downloaded during the first five months. Third-party apps for the iPhone were introduced to iTunes in mid July 2008.

The 500 million downloads in 6 months comes close to matching the pace of digital music, which saw 1.07 billion downloads in 2008, according to The Nielsen Co. At this rate, it’s possible iTunes apps could become a larger industry, in terms of downloads, than the entire digital music business combined.

The total number of applications in the App store during the same time period grew from 10,000 to 15,000.