iTunes Store: applications to overtake songs in number of downloads this year

By on Sep 8, 2010 at 6:20 PM
General September 8, 2010

Aysmco is reporting that iOS application downloads on Apple’s iTunes store should overtake the number of song downloads sometime this year. The report is based on figures from the recent September 1 update to the iTunes Music Store and the iTunes Application Store. Asymco writes, “the App store has reached the same total downloads in 2.2 years as the iTMS reached after five years. The two curves are likely to be the same height (around 13 billion each) before the year is over.” Anyone surprised by the findings?

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24 Comments

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  • 3D Dot Hero

    Wow, those Apple Hipster Douchebags like their fart apps more than music.

    Interesting.

    On second thought..not really.

    • RJB

      Why is the first to leave a comment always an idiot?

      • Nigel

        Hahahah…well said!

  • d(*_*)b

    second to comment dam you @3D Dot Hero!!!

  • slammer

    My question is how many apps stay the course once downloaded? I know many individuals that downloaded apps only to uninstall them after about a months time.
    Novelties are great once new but then wear off. Yet more people tend to keep their favorite music for much longer time.

    So I would have to say that this comparison could in all likelyhood be somewhat irrelevant. Just my opinion.

    John B.

    • John

      I remember that I downloaded over 20 apps on my first day and had like 50 by the end of the month. Two years later, I only have seven apps downloaded apps total. I think my experience probably speaks to what the retention rate on apps is.

  • Halamadrid

    I believe this has more to do with the increased competition that the music store is getting vis-a-vis the apps store. Right now you can get (cheaper – drm free) music from Amazon and other stores, which I believe seriously undercuts the itunes music store, whereas there’s pretty much no competition on the app side.

    • Killah Kyle

      Or maybe this chart would be way different if torrent didn’t exist.

  • Norm

    DROID apps are already overtaking this number. Apple is dying as you can see in this chart. DROID + VZW FTW!!!!

  • RJB

    Lots of apps are free. The music is not.

    • WalterSobchak

      Also I wonder if this is original downloads? Does it count twice if you uninstall/reinstall, or when you upgrade to the 3gs then ip4?
      Also wait until the chinese get there hands on the rumored cdma iphone, they will download apps but I guarantee they will not buy music at over $1/song.
      Maybe that is how they know apps will surpass music

  • Johnny Ives

    Hope the Asymco board doesn’t degenerate into juvinile flame war that BGR has become as a result of BGR linking to it.

    Nothing to see here fanboys, move along..

  • Perspective

    This isn’t all that impressive. The Android Market has sold more apps than songs every day of its existence. Wait, that’s right. Google hasn’t copied Apple’s music business yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

    • wanderer

      Yep, waiting for googletv and G-tunes. Hey at least youtube has some free movies to watch.

  • grooves12

    Not that surprising considering most of the app downloads are free…

  • Lou Sermonski

    Let’s see, 6 million apps at an average of .1 cent each (99.9% free, 0.1% $1) equals…um….something really close to zero

  • Professor Hussein

    So wait, something of a price of $0 sells more units that something with a price of $1?!? Wow! I’m outta here, I think I just came up with a new economic theory.

  • patrick

    App retention would be nice to see.

  • patrick

    I think it is safe to say that of the two hundred and fifty thousand apps their are, and I’m being generous here, maybe one thousand apps that are ones you would want to keep. On android maybe five hundred. So retention is the golden rule here not mass numbers. Anyone disagree?

  • Free2Faith

    Lets be honest here. Who still buys music? Especially when songs are being sold for $1.29 each. No thanks, Apple.

  • ranomatic

    This is the fuzziest of of fuzzy math.

  • blackscreen

    BREAKING NEWS: People consume more free stuff than stuff they have to pay for…

    More tonight at 11:00…

  • http://www.thirasystems.com dave ginsburg

    Ten years ago, we were all caught up in the swirl of analyst reports covering how many billions would be spent on optical networking, how many eyeballs were destined to the latest new media website, or how many sock puppets a business model made. Thus, whenever I see the ‘B’ world floated around, it catches my interest.

    Sure, the observation in the article is important, but the less informed may leave thinking that the iThing’s day for music is over. The reality is quite the opposite.

    I’ve got 7700 songs on my iTunes server (all legal, with the CDs collecting dust in the basement). This is 39GB. At any time, I’ve transferred between 3-5GB to my iPad or those of my kids. Only about 20 in total have been purchased from the iTunes store. While gaming, the kids play music (though my multitasking ability isn’t quite there). With true multitasking in a few months enabling the likes of Pandora and Spotify, this will become the norm for many surfing the web or composing an email.

    What the numbers do show, however, is the increasing stickiness of the icosystem… the power of recommendation in driving impulse downloads, and disposable applications – those that you download once, kick around a bit, and then push off to the side. You know what would be fun? A tracker much like that which exists for Windows that groups application by last use and time… how many are opened on a daily or weekly basis, and how usage falls off over time (irrespective of how many new levels the Angry Birds folks crank out… I see this firsthand at home). Now that info I’d share. We could make a game of the numbers.

  • APPLE CHEERLEADER

    what is a itune ?

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