Apple's App Store Passes 40 Billion Downloads

It looks like 2012 was a pretty good year for Apple's App Store.

Apple announced Monday that the App Store has now passed 40 billion downloads since launching in 2008, with nearly 20 billion apps downloaded in 2012. The company had a particularly strong holiday season, with 2 billion app downloads in December alone.

The App Store hit the 25 billion mark in March and passed 35 billion in October.

“It has been an incredible year for the iOS developer community,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, in a statement. “Developers have made over $7 billion on the App Store, and we continue to invest in providing them with the best ecosystem so they can create the most innovative apps in the world.”

Just as importantly, the company revealed that there are now more than 500 million active accounts in the App Store, showing the growth of Apple's user base.

In total, there are now 775,000 apps in Apple's App Store, with more than 300,000 apps specifically designed for iPad. That's up from 700,000 total apps in October, with about 250,000 iPad-specific apps at the time.