Over the past 12 months, freemium games have become part of the furniture on the App Store - the latest numbers suggesting at least a third of the top grossing iPhone apps come without direct charge.

That's according to stats pooled by GigaOM, with the site claiming 34 of the top 100 apps currently sat on the App Store are free.

Fellow analytics firm App Annie claims its own numbers suggest 4 percent of the top 50 grossing apps on the App Store were freemium releases in January, but that number has jumped to around 40 percent in October.

App Annie cites a change in the way Apple calculates app revenues at the start of November will further boost the stats.

The numbers game

These are even more startling statistics when you consider Distimo's claim that freemium titles - funded either by in app purchases or advertising - account for just 1.34 percent of all apps on the App Store.

Taking 300,000 to be the App Store's current tally, that equates to around 4,000 freemium apps in total, 34 of which – around 1 percent – have made it into GigaOM's top 100.

Free-for-all

The rarity of freemium releases might not hold for all too long, however, with Distimo CEO Remco van den Elzen telling the site that more and more publishers and developers are seeing the potential of the freemium model.

Capcom and Glu Mobile are two of the larger publishers to recently realign their businesses in this direction.

"We're seeing more developers implement more in app purchases especially with games," said van den Elzen.

"Freemium apps are also picking up significantly. A lot of developers realise it’s a successful model."

[source: GigaOM]