Apple reports more than 15B apps downloaded

7/8/2011

NEW YORK — Apple Inc. customers downloaded more than 15 billion applications in the past three years, the company said Thursday, releasing figures that suggest the rate of downloads is sharply accelerating.

The latest figures from Apple show that customers have downloaded around 5 billion apps so far this year. The company said in January that it had just passed the 10 billion download mark.

It took roughly 21/2 years to reach 10 billion downloads — but much of the period was spent without the popular iPad tablet.