Apple’s App Store has a killer Christmas

The home of all things Apple and app-related saw 2 billion apps downloaded in December alone. That brings the total apps downloaded in 2012 to 20bn, and 40bn since the app store opened in 2008. Google’s Play Store has been rapidly catching up, however – Google claims 25bn apps have been downloaded so far (as at September 2012) – despite Apple’s 2 year head start.

Apple claims 500 million active accounts on its app store, which is now 775,000 strong (300,000 of which are native iPad apps) –  Google still hovers around 400,000. App developers have been paid out £7bn through the App Store.

“It has been an incredible year for the iOS developer community,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “Developers have made over seven billion dollars on the App Store, and we continue to invest in providing them with the best ecosystem so they can create the most innovative apps in the world.”