50B Downloads for the Apple App Store Now a Reality

What a difference a week makes! It was just under a week ago when word emerged that Apple had a contest ready for the person who managed to get the Apple App Store over the line for 50 billion total downloads, and now, word has emerged that not only has Apple cleared this major milestone, but also there's some word about the winner of Apple's contest to boot.

Both the countdown timer on Apple's website and the App Store's Twitter account provided the confirmation, and the winner was further confirmed as Mentor, Ohio's own Brandon Ashmore, who takes home a $10,000 gift card for the App Store. Immediately following Ashmore's win, though, came 50 more winners, who got a respectable $500 gift card each.

Apple's senior vice president for Internet software and services, Eddy Cue, offered up some thanks and congratulations of his own, saying, "Apple would like to thank our incredible customers and developers for topping 50 billion apps downloaded. The App Store completely transformed how people use their mobile devices and created a thriving app ecosystem that has paid out over nine billion dollars to developers. We're absolutely floored to cross this milestone in less than five years."

The current information suggests that Apple boasts over 850,000 individual apps in 23 different categories, with a little under half that number--around 350,000, at last count--native apps for the iPad. Considering that there are over 500 million active iTunes accounts across 155 countries worldwide, it's not too surprising that big numbers would be following. What's more, Canalys recently offered up some of its own research in support of Apple's popularity, with the App Store bringing in fully $1.48 billion in revenue, representing nearly three quarters--74 percent--of all app stores' earnings across every platform.

In a somewhat unexpected aside, Google yesterday, during its big I/O developers' event, announced that the Play Store had cleared 48 billion app downloads itself. Pretty close, but given the disparity in income levels, Google may have the numbers, but Apple seems to be largely winning the race. What's particularly noteworthy about Google's numbers, however, is that the numbers are generated across an installation base that is substantially larger than Apple's--nearly double in fact--at around 900 million Android activations. 

Yet with Apple's growth potentially looking to slow up in the coming months, it could be that Apple downloads may slow as well, giving Android a chance to catch up. Android has quite a few more users than Apple, but it's clear that Apple users have deeper pockets. It's going to make for a very competitive overall environment for mobile devices in the near term, with changes afoot on both sides and new technologies making an impact regularly. Only time will tell who ultimately comes out on top.