BlackBerry App World Reaches 3 Billion Downloads

RIM has announced that more than three billion applications have been downloaded from BlackBerry App World since it was launched in 2009.

The beleaguered mobile manufacturer claims that the three billion apps average out to 2.5 million downloads a day and says that daily downloads to continue to rise.

The BlackBerry App myth

“There’s a myth out there that there aren’t apps for BlackBerry smartphones and the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet,” said RIM, who said that the figure did not take into account apps downloaded from third party app stores, applications pushed internally at companies or those downloaded directly from the web.

According to the company, it took BlackBerry smartphone and BlackBerry PlayBook owners 786 days to reach the one billion mark, 210 days to hit two billion, with the three billion milestone achieved in 176 days.

There are now 90,000 applications up for sale on BlackBerry App World, with RIM noting that this did not mean “submitted” or “approved”, the measurements favoured by Apple and Google. RIM said that it wanted to think the 28,000 App World vendors and the storefront team for reaching the target.

Apple’s App Store hit the 25 billion download milestone in March this year, while the recently rebranded Google Play store reached 15 billion downloads in May.

RIM has struggled as of late, with its hopes of a revival resting on the upcoming launch of devices running the new version of its smartphone operating system, BlackBerry OS 10.

A leaked roadmap suggested that five more devices running the software will be released next year, but the announcement that the platform will be delayed still further has heaped further misery on the company, which has cut 5,000 staff as part of a restructuring programme.

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