The figures are derived from market research conducted by Gartner and from sales figures released by Apple. In 2009, the research company estimates around 2.5 billion mobile applications were sent out, and based on the App Store recently clocking up 3 billion downloaded apps it's been decided that the 16 million downloads unspoken for by Apple must belong to "other platforms' recently opened app stores".
Despite concerns and general disbelief that Apple entirely owns the mobile application market, Arstechnica insists the figures add up.
"A number of people have expressed concern that Gartner's figure only count apps sold, and not free apps. Gartner's press release indicated otherwise, and we verified with Baghdassarian that the figures include all apps, free or otherwise, distributed from every app store. According to Apple, it moved 2.5 billion apps, free or otherwise. We contend that the 99.4 percent figure is accurate."
It's probably time someone called the monopolies commission.
