Asymco: There are an average of 60 apps on every iOS device as download total tops 10 billion

Using the news that total App Store downloads are about to top 10 billion, mobile industry advisory firm asymco has deduced that each iOS device now has an average of 60 apps on it.

Firm founder Horace Dediu has compared the number of downloads to the platform's total userbase last officially pegged at 120 million by Apple back in September to illustrate a general acceleration in app take up.

Music to the ears

According to his numbers, each iOS device only had an average of 10 apps on it back in 2008 - downloads per user having increased sixfold in just over two years.

Indeed, the actual attach rate is likely to be even higher, given an unknown portion of iOS's 120 million strong userbse will more than likely be inactive.

What's certain, however, is that the App Store will have taken less than half the time to reach 10 billion downloads than tracks on iTunes 31 weeks in the App Store's case to 67 weeks for iTunes.

In total, it's estimated App Store payments to developers now sit at the $2 billion mark, which sits some way behind the $12 billion figure reportedly paid to record labels. Mainly because most downloaded apps are free. 

However, when total app downloads overtake iTunes - something it's on track to do in the coming months - Dediu claims it'll create something of a watershed moment for the industry.

Dash for downloads"In September I made the prediction that total apps would overtake total songs sold by the end of 2010," Dediu says on asymco's blog.

"That has not yet happened, but it's close. The amazing story... is not that apps are running at above 30 million download per day, but that the figure is growing.

"Growth like this is hard to get one's mind around. Not only are downloads increasing, but the rate of increase is increasing."

All such figures help to prove that consumer appetite for apps is not just a passing phase, says Dediu, but rather a sign that iOS users have firmly accepted them as a model for delivering software.

In fact, next up is the PC market, with Dediu concluding that app consumption will overtake sales of software for computers in the near future if rates continue to accelerate.

[source: asymco]