Just this week, we have brought to you a news that the iTunes App Store has now turned 3 years old and that it has more than 400,000 active apps with over 15 billion downloads. The App Store is definitely on a roll and it does not show any signs of slowing down as it is now healthier than ever. As the App Store continues to impress, a certain research company called Asymco came up with statistics that the mobile application distribution platform of Apple has completely overtaken the iTunes song downloads.
Asymco arrived to these conclusions after Apple announced in last month’s WWDC that the iTunes had served more than 15 billion song downloads.
It was only a few weeks ago (at WWDC) that we had an update on the app store growth rates. The data was presented here.
One of the data points from the event was that iTunes hit 15 billion song downloads. Last week we heard that iTunes also hit 15 billion app downloads.
The milestones were reached within less than a month so it’s a fairly safe assumption that apps have overtaken songs. I had originally guessed that the cross-over would take place at 13 billion at the end of 2010.
It took about six years for the iTunes song downloads to reach the 15 million mark, while the it took only three years for the app downloads to hit that threshold. And with the current rate that the download rates are going, the app downloads will eventually overtake the song downloads despite the head start that was given to the latter.
The app download rate is now at least 31 million per month while the song download rate is about 12 million per month. Including books (but excluding video content), the App Store in now delivering at least 44 million new content downloads per month.
This shouldn’t be at least that surprising. Song purchase, while still putting up decent numbers in terms of downloads have experienced quite a significant decline over the years. People who are still inclined to buy music nowadays are much lesser. Piracy most likely played a part in the decline of song purchases. While piracy also affects the app industry, maybe it is just that more people think that buying an app is a much better investment than buying a single song? However you look at it, a $0.99 app versus a $0.99 song, the value proposition is simply in favor of the former.
You also have to take into account that downloading songs from iTunes is severely restricted especially when it is outside the USA while in contrast the availability of the App Store is almost worldwide. Another factor that comes into play here is that thousands of apps can be downloaded for free while the same can’t be said for songs.
This is yet another testament to the growth and strength of the iTunes App Store. And this is bolstered by the fact that apps are being added daily to the App Store plus the impressive sales of the iDevices itself.