Steve Jobs told the Wall Street Journal users downloaded over 60 million iPhone applications and rung up sales of close to $30 million in the first month the AppStore was open for business.
While many of the iPhone applications available at the AppStore are free, paid apps such as Sega Corp.’s $9.99 Super Monkeball game helped bring in nearly $9 million to the top ten developers selling apps on the store. In all, Apple will distribute over $21 million in revenues from the 70% cut of sales developers make for software sold through the AppStore.
Jobs said the early results point to the success of Apple’s strategy to invest in the AppStore as a means of differentiating the iPhone among competitors in the smartphone handset market. He speculated on a potential $1 billion marketplace, saying, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my career for software.”
“Phone differentiation used to be about radios and antennas and things like that,” Jobs said. “We think, going forward, the phone of the future will be differentiated by software.”
The Apple CEO also confirmed reports of a “kill switch” in the iPhone’s software that would allow the company to remotely disable software users had previously paid for and installed on their phones. He argued that Apple needs it in case it inadvertently allows a malicious program — one that stole users’ personal data, for example — to be distributed to iPhones through the App Store. “Hopefully we never have to pull that lever, but we would be irresponsible not to have a lever like that to pull,” he said.
Via The Wall Street Journal
