Approximately 736,247 apps still active, 45 percent paid

According to the cofounder of iOS app discovery tool Appsfire, Apple's iOS App Store has passed the milestone of over one million apps submitted and approved into its marketplace. The store, which opened in July 2008, currently hosts approximately 736,247 apps, 45 percent of which are paid and 16 percent of which are games. The disparity in "live " Apps and the total number of submitted and approved apps is due to some apps' discontinuation, and in some cases because of removal due to violations of Apple's policies.

Of the active applications, Apple's CEO Tim Cook recently said that 90 percent of them were downloaded at least once a month, and that the average customer has over 100 apps. In terms of use, and number of apps, Apple's App Store still leads over the Google Play store, which has around 675,000 apps and has seen more than 25 billion downloads according to statistics released in September. Apple says users have downloaded more than 35 billion apps during the last four and a half years.

The creation of the iOS App Store and its competitors has created a robust and largely US-based job-creating industry, with Apple paying out over $5 billion to iOS developers as of June. The Mac App Store and Mac apps are not counted as part of the one million submissions to the iOS store, nor were any iOS apps submitted that were not approved.

by MacNN Staff