Edible Apple

Regarding the iTunes App Store, Steve Jobs noted earlier today that there have been over 5 billion app store downloads, an unbelievable tally no matter how you look at it. Admittedly, a good number of those downloads are free apps, but don’t get it twisted – money is still changing hands, my friends.

Steve Jobs announced during the Keynote that Apple has paid out over $1 billion dollars to developers since the inception of the app store. Factoring in Apple’s 30% cut of all app sales, we can deduce that Apple has raked in over $1.42 billion from app sales and netted approximately $428 million of that in profit.

On a somewhat related note, Jobs took a few seconds to highlight the popularity of the eBay app for the iPhone, tossing up a quote from eBay CEO John Donovan:

“We launched the eBay application on the iPhone last year – 10 million downloads. It did $600 million of volume in its first year. It’s going to do $1.5 billion to $2 billion this year.”