What Apple has been able to do with the App Store, even if you believe the numbers are fudged, is truly astonishing. Apple claims that they recently eclipsed the 3 billion download mark and it only took them roughly 18 months to do so. Market research firm, Gartner, says that 2.5 billion apps were downloaded from the App Store in 2009 alone. Gartner accounts for another 16 million apps being downloaded from other platforms, so, when you do the math, well over 99% of all mobile downloads were from Apple’s App Store.
These kinds of numbers are awesomely impressive for Apple, however, I see a huge opportunity for everyone else.