iPhone App Piracy Siphoned $450 Million Worth Of Revenues

An analysis by the technology blog 24/7 Wall St. has revealed that Apple and the developers who sell apps for iPhone and iPod Touch at the App Store have lost a whopping $450 million in sales since the store was launched in July 2008.

A massive 3 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store since its inception, of which 13 percent to 21 percent, according to Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi, were the paid apps.

The analyst further reported that the average price of an app at the App Store stood at $3, and that the company earns somewhere between $60 million and $110 million from the store each quarter.

A number of developers are offering their own piracy software tools at alarming rates, and the ease with which the iPhone and the iPod Touch users are getting hold over the pirated versions of the apps is on the rise.

Users looking for pirated apps for their iPhone and iPod Touch device first need to get their devices “jailbroken”, or simply “unlocked”, which alters the Apple iPhone OS. This further enables the users to evade the restrictions placed by Apple.

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The jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch allows for, in addition to customising icons, functionality and processes, and backgrounds, installation of pirated applications from sources other than the App Store.