Steve Jobs: 60 million iPhone apps downloaded in one month

Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs told the Wall Street Journal it has sold more than 60 million applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch in just a month.

Apple previously reported it sold more than one million iPhone 3Gs and 10 million applications in the first three days the device was on sale. Now, it says it has sold more than 60 million applications in the first month, with an average of two million application sales per day. The iPhone 3G applications do a variety of tasks similar to those performed on a desktop or laptop computer. Many of the applications are free, while others sell for $0.99 or more. One application “I am Rich” sold for $999.99 and all it did was show a diamond on the screen. After three days, Apple removed it without reason. Jobs gave the following figures to the Wall Street Journal: 1.) Revenues from application were $30 million. For every application sold in iTunes, 70 per cent goes to the developers and 30 per cent goes to Apple. 2.) If sales continue at the current pace, Apple is expected to make more than $360 million in a year, just from applications. 3.) Sega, which sells its games for the iPhone, made nearly $9 million during this period. It sold more than 300,000 copies of Super Monkeyball game ($9.99 per download) in 20 days. 4.) Jobs said there will be a rich variety of applications for the iPhone, which will help Apple differentiate itself from other smartphones such as Blackberry, Palm and Microsoft Mobile devices. Jobs told the Wall Street Journal:

“This thing’s going to crest a half a billion, soon…Who knows, maybe it will be a $1 billion marketplace at some point in time…. I’ve never seen anything like this in my career for software.”

Jobs also confirmed the company has a kill switch that gives Apple the ability to turn off applications remotely if they consider them to be malicious. Some developers are not happy about this feature, but Jobs says Apple wants to protect customers first. I would bet that more applications will be downloaded as more people become familiar with the power of the iPhone and variety of apps available for the device.