James Delahunty
22 Apr 2009 21:15
Apple COO Tim Cook revealed during a second quarter earnings call on Tuesday that sales of the company's iPhone and iPod Touch devices have passed 37 million units. He said that sales of the touch-screen handhelds had more than doubled year over year. The sales figures combined make it an enormous platform for developers, particularly with games, which have been the most popular downloads from the App Store since it launched 9 months ago.
Apple and its development partners will soon "unleash a whole new level of innovation that keeps Apple years ahead of everyone else," according to Cook. The company said the success of the iPod Touch is clearly driven by the App Store. "All genres [on the App Store] are very popular," said Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, "but games are quite popular. That's one of the reasons the iPod touch has been such a success."
In his preamble, Oppenheimer said the App Store now totals more than 35,000 applications. The company expects to pass 1 billion App downloads sometime on Thursday, April 23. It has also held its position on top of the portable media player market, with NPD recently confirming that Apple still holds 70 percent of the market in the U.S., and gains more ground each year worldwide.