Happy 5th Birthday, Apple App Store

One of the most influential forces in the modern games market will turn five tomorrow.

Apple’s iOS App Store arrived in 2008 and has gone on to redefine the world of digital gaming and force significant changes to the core games market.

Nothing like the App Store existed before and it has fundamentally changed the world,” Apple boss Tim Cook stated. Customers love the buying experience and they love your incredible apps. And they have now downloaded 50bn apps. This is phenomenal. That’s a lot of zeros and a truly staggering number, for less than five years."

Apple has released a host of global App Store stats, too:

Over 600 million iOS devices sold to date

• 6 Million registered developers creating apps for Apple devices, +1.5M in last year
• Over 50 billion apps downloaded
• Over 900,000 apps on the App Store (93% downloaded each month)
• 375k bespoke iPad apps
• 575,000,000 App Store accounts
• Apple has paid developers $10 billion in five years (3 times more than all other mobile platforms combined)
• More than 800 apps downloaded every second
• Over two billion apps downloaded every month
• Average number of apps downloaded per App Store customer = more than 100 (a/o September 12)
• App Store available in 155 countries

Upon its arrival on July 10th 2008, the App Store took just four days to reach 10m downloads, with Sega’s Super Monkey Ball proving the early star with 300,000 downloads by August 2nd.

By September 9th App Store had reached 100m downloads and on August 4th 2009 the portal hit 1bn downloads.

Apple has also released a host of all-time App Store charts:

Top 10 Free iPhone All-Time:

1. Facebook
2. Pandora Radio
3. Instagram
4. YouTube
5. Skype
6. Words With Friends Free
7. The Weather Channel
8. Twitter
9. Temple Run
10. 10.Google Search

Top 10 Paid iPhone All-Time:

1. Angry Birds
2. Fruit Ninja
3. Doodle Jump
4. Cut the Rope
5. Angry Birds Seasons
6. WhatsApp Messenger
7. Camera+
8. Words with Friends
9. Tiny Wings
10. 10.Angry Birds Space

Top 10 Paid iPad All-Time:

1. Pages
2. Angry Birds HD
3. Angry Birds Seasons HD
4. Where’s My Water
5. Fruit Ninja HD
6. Angry Birds Space HD
7. GarageBand
8. Words With Friends HD
9. Cut the Rope HD
10. 10.Keynote

Top 10 Free iPad All-Time:

1. Skype for iPad
2. The Weather Channel for iPad
3. Netflix
4. Angry Birds HD Free
5. Kindle
6. Facebook
7. Pandora Radio
8. Calculator for iPad Free
9. Fruit Ninja HD Free
10. Words With Friends HD Free