Apple IPhone Application Downloads Top 1.5 Billion

Apple Inc. said users of the iPhone and iPod Touch media player have downloaded more than 1.5 billion programs from the company’s online store, signaling demand for the applications is accelerating.

The pace of downloads has picked up since Apple reached the 1 billion mark in April. The App Store now has more than 65,000 free and paid programs available, up from more than 500 when the site was introduced a year ago, Apple said in a statement today.

Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs said the application site’s success will make it “very hard” for competitors to catch up. Research In Motion Ltd. and Palm Inc. set up stores in recent months offering programs for their devices and lag behind Apple in the number of applications available.

RIM, which opened its App World in April, said the number of programs on the site doubled to about 2,000 as of July 6. Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, maker of the BlackBerry, doesn’t provide download figures.

Palm, which began selling the Pre handset in June, has about 30 programs on its site. Several thousand developers have applied to build programs for the Pre, Pam Deziel, vice president of developer relations, said last month.

Apple, which also makes the Macintosh computer, rose 76 cents to $143.10 at 9:37 a.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. The Cupertino, California-based company’s shares had gained 67 percent this year before today.

Market-Share Gains

The iPhone went on sale in June 2007, and Apple added the App Store after developers clamored for a way to create programs for the device. Apple is the gatekeeper for the site, approving which programs are distributed. It takes a 30 percent cut of each application sold and distributes free programs at no cost.

In June, Apple released a faster version of the iPhone, selling more than 1 million in the first weekend. There are now more than 40 million iPhone and iPod Touch users who can download games and programs for the phone that do everything from tracking the weather to simulating a Zippo lighter to keeping tabs on calories consumed.

The iPhone’s share of global sales of so-called smart phones doubled to 10.8 percent in the first quarter, outpacing RIM’s growth, according to research firm Gartner Inc. RIM boosted its share to 19.9 percent. Nokia Oyj dominated the market with 41 percent, while Palm ranked outside the top five.

To contact the reporter on this story: Connie Guglielmo in San Francisco at cguglielmo1@bloomberg.net.

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