Apple apps reach 50bn mark

More than 50 billion apps have been downloaded from Apple’s App Store — a figure which would roughly equate to around seven for every person on the planet.

Customers now download around 800 per second — or more than two billion each month, the California-based firm said.

The figures reflect the rapid expansion of a business that began some five years ago and has been fuelled by the growth of the smartphone and tablet industries.