Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the statistics of its digital app store that has nearly 800 million iTunes accounts, most with credit cards used to purchase $5.2 billion worth apps last quarter.
Apple, the second largest smartphone maker and a leader in premium electronics, announced its quarterly earnings during the company's conference call, Wednesday. CEO Tim Cook took the opportunity to give details of the company's earnings and impressive statistics for its revenue generating digital marketplace. Cook said Apple is just about to reach the 800 million mark for its iTunes accounts, which he described as "staggering" during the company's earnings call.
Cook's excitement in announcing the impressive statistics is entirely justified, as the Cupertino tech giant had over 575 million iTunes accounts as of last June. The previous announcement on the iTunes milestone was made during its annual developer's conference last year. In just 10 months, Apple added nearly 40 percent more iTunes accounts, suggesting a blowout quarter. If the company continues at the same pace, it is bound to add its first billionth iTunes account in less than a year.
"We now have an almost 800 million iTunes accounts, most of these with credit cards," CNET quoted Cook as saying during the company's earnings call, Wednesday. "This is a staggering number."
Cook also noted the spike in iTunes accounts resulted in increased app downloads. According to the company, the Apple App Store has witnessed 70 billion app downloads, which is an addition of 5 billion since the beginning of the quarter in January. Apple customers spent a total of $5.2 billion on iTunes purchases last quarter, which is a significant increase of 24 percent from the same period a year ago, Venture Beat reports.
"Keep in mind, in that category there's several things -- not just the App Store kind of revenues," Cook said responding to a question from an analyst on the call, according to CNET. "So if you looked at App Store only, it would look a little different than what you're saying. But in terms of your question about monetization, I do believe that we can monetize more than we are from a services point of view in existing areas and in new areas. And I'm particularly encouraged that when I look at the App Store and how it's doing, the strength was broad-based. In fact, in China, the growth was in the triple digits."
Overall earnings published by Apple for the second quarter ending March 29, 2014, show a net profit of $10.2 billion, compared to $9.5 billion in profit in the same quarter a year ago.
