Estimate: Apple App Store Generates $1 Million per Day

Considering that I’m partial to free apps myself, I’m blown away by that number. $1 Million in apps a day?

And yet, according to Business Week (via ZDnet), the Apple app store generates that much revenue for Apple, which means that it could bring in $365 million this year.  

Oh, and did I mention the title of the article? Report: App Store to Generate $US 25B in Sales. Who knew SmartPhone apps could be recession-proof?

The bullish forecast is based on not only penetration of smart phones in the market, but the fact that the app stores haven’t seen a wide adoption yet. While the article states that 17% of smartphone users spent $100 or more on apps, there were far fewer smartphone users last year — and far fewer app stores (see my comments below). With the opening of app stores for both BlackBerry and Microsoft handsets, we should see a lot more purchases. 

And let’s also consider the number of available  apps. About 9 months ago, the app store opened with 500 apps. Now there are more than 30,000, (although growth appears to be slowing slightly). And downloads – free or paid – are on the rise:  more than 800 million applications were downloaded as of last month, and there was a 60% rise in downloads during February and March of this year. And that’s just in Apple’s app store.

To return to my previous point (yes, I actually had one) the opening of app stores for other platforms should encourage adoption of apps by the smartphone-wielding masses. Assuming the apps stores created by RIM and Microsoft provide a decent user experience and a good selection of apps, the $25 billion number seems almost attainable.

Of course, it will take users like me to decide what’s actually worth paying for.  Or paying more than $.99 for, anyway.

One pressing question that comes to my mind: Who’s going to build all those apps? 

Let me shout that to the team across from me: “Who’s going to build all those apps?”