Apple's App Store Reaches 50 Billion Downloads, Now on Pace for 20 Billion Apps Per Year - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Apple's App Store Reaches 50 Billion Downloads, Now on Pace for 20 Billion Apps Per Year

Apple's App Store today reached 50 billion downloads since its inception in 2008, and along with the milestone comes the end of the company's "50 Billion App Countdown" promotion launched thirteen days ago. The winner of the promotion, who is yet to be announced, will be awarded a $10,000 gift card valid for App Store, Mac App Store, or any other iTunes Store content. Fifty additional winners will receive $500 gift cards.

app_store_50_billion
The milestone is being acknowledged on Apple's website with a graphic showing a "Thanks" message written using award-winning iPad app Paper by FiftyThree.

The App Store took nearly 3 years, 8 months to reach 25 billion downloads, with the next 25 billion downloads requiring only about 14.5 months.

app_store_50_billion_graph
With the last 25 billion downloads coming over a period of 14.5 months, Apple's pace is now at over 20 billion downloads per year or over 50 million per day. As tracked by our sister site AppShopper, Apple has approved a total of nearly 1.2 million apps for the App Store since its launch, with nearly 850,000 of them currently available in the store.

Popular Stories

Apple Event Logo

Apple's Next Era Begins September 1

Thursday May 7, 2026 10:36 am PDT by
Apple recently announced that Tim Cook will be stepping down as CEO later this year, after 15 years of leading the company. Effective September 1, Apple's hardware engineering chief John Ternus will become the company's next CEO, while Cook will become executive chairman of Apple's board of directors. In his new role, Apple said Cook will assist with "certain aspects" of the company,...
Four iPhone 18 Pro Colors Mock Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching in September With These 10 New Features

Saturday May 9, 2026 6:03 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not launching until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. It was initially reported that the iPhone 18 Pro models would have fully under-screen Face ID, with only a front camera visible in the top-left corner of the screen. However, the latest rumors indicate that only one Face ID component will be moved under the...
Apple Watch Series 10 Jet Black Touch ID

Apple Watch Series 12 and watchOS 27: What to Expect Later This Year

Friday May 8, 2026 2:07 pm PDT by
While not too much has been reported about the next Apple Watch models, there are a few rumors about potential design changes and watchOS 27 features. Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 models are expected to be released in September, and we have outlined some of the key rumored hardware and software changes below. A new Apple Watch SE is not expected this year, as that model was...

Top Rated Comments

gmanist1000 Avatar
170 months ago
Can't wait to see what the app was. I'm thinking Hangouts has a high chance....
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Shrink Avatar
170 months ago
Thank goodness that's over.

The excitement was just incredibly underwhelming.:rolleyes:
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacDav Avatar
170 months ago
so who won?

You did...You're first on MacRumors. :p
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ck2875 Avatar
170 months ago
Who else was in there at the last minute really gunning for it and downloading apps? I bet their traffic went up in the last 10 minutes!
To be fair, the official rules stated: "Any download counter displayed by Sponsor is for illustrative purposes only. The potential winners will be determined by the order of the entries received." so it's quite possible the winner downloaded their app any time before or after that counter struck 50,000,000,000.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacDav Avatar
170 months ago
What is someone really gonna do with a $10,000 gift card to the app stores? Buy Angry Birds for 5.000 of their closest friends? :)

Well first I would buy all the Apple Pro software Final Cut Pro, Logic, etc.
After that the choices get a little more boring and difficult. :)
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MacDav Avatar
170 months ago
I caought it on 50 billion hahahah :)
[url=http://i1282.photobucket.com/albums/a532/jamesjingyi/50000000000_zps522547ef.png]Image (http://s1282.photobucket.com/user/jamesjingyi/media/50000000000_zps522547ef.png.html)[/URL]

You life is now complete. :p
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)