Apple's Mac App Store downloads top 100 million

Apple revealed on Monday that downloads via its Mac App Store have topped 100 million in less than one year of operations.

"In just three years the App Store changed how people get mobile apps, and now the Mac App Store is changing the traditional PC software industry," said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "With more than 100 million downloads in less than a year, the Mac App Store is the largest and fastest growing PC software store in the world."

Apple's collective App Stores for iOS and the Mac have more than 500,000 applications available that have been downloaded more than 18 billion times. Users continue to download more than a billion applications per month.

Apple's press release issued on Monday also includes comments from a number of developers and companies who have found success with the Mac App Store, which debuted in January.

"With Autodesk products in both the App Store and Mac App Store, we can reach hundreds of millions of Apple users around the world," said Amar Hanspal, senior vice president of Platform Solutions and Emerging Business at Autodesk. "With our free AutoCAD WS and the more powerful professional drafting tools of AutoCAD LT, we’re using the Mac App Store to deliver new products and reach a growing base of new Mac customers."

"The Mac App Store has unparalleled reach and has completely transformed our distribution and development cycle," said Saulius Dailide of the Pixelmator Team. "Offering Pixelmator 2.0 exclusively on the Mac App Store allows us to streamline updates to our image editing software and stay ahead of the competition."

"In less than one year we’ve shifted the distribution of djay for Mac exclusively to the Mac App Store," said Karim Morsy, CEO of algoriddim. "With just a few clicks, djay for Mac is available to customers in 123 countries worldwide. We could never have that reach through traditional channels."

The Mac App Store has helped Apple push for an all-digital strategy in software distribution, allowing the company to remove disc drives from a good portion of its Mac lineup. The company also made the Mac App Store the preferred way for customers to upgrade to its latest operating system, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.

Apple's focus with the Mac App Store has also allowed the company to discontinue boxed software at its retail stores. Customers at Apple's retail stores are now instructed to purchase their software through the Mac App Store.