Apple’s red-hot app store has passed the 2 billion downloads milestone, just five months after racking up its first billion.
Around 500 million apps have been downloaded this quarter alone, CEO Steve Jobs said. It now hosts more than 85,000 apps and has a pool of 50 million iPhone and iPod touch customers in the 77 countries supported, he added.
An average of 6.3 million apps are downloaded each day, according to AppleInsider, up from 4.1 million downloads per day during the store's first year of operation.
The app store’s popularity and its importance in handset sales has driven rivals RIM, Nokia, Samsung and LG to build their own app stores, with varying success.
Operators such as China Mobile, Verizon and SK Telecom have also joined the bandwagon, while China Unicom and China Telecom are beta testing storefronts.
But China Mobile, which launched its Mobile Market in August, has had trouble attracting developer support and now describes its store as still in the trial stage.