Below is a partial list of superlatives used in this press release:

* 2 x record-breaking

* 4 x incredible

* 2 x best

* most innovative

* astonishing

* beyond our wildest dreams

* thrilled

* excited

* 3 x great

* never seen such a vibrant marketplace

It would be interesting to know if older applications account for more or less than 50% of the downloads this year. In other words has the potential for a new app gone up or down as the number of apps in the store has grown?

Simply going by the "Top X apps" thing, the bulk of downloads seem to be of new apps (though there are a few old ones, like Facebook and Angry Birds, perennially up the list).

Interesting, I had no idea that links could be submitted with and without https: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5020964

So that's averaging 40 app downloads per account in 2012 alone. Higher than I would expect, but I guess a lot of people download a lot of free apps and then immediately delete them.

How many were repeats (deleted from device, then re-downloaded later)? How many were updates to existing apps (or did they count those)?

These numbers are meant to impress people who know nothing about numbers, in my opinion.

"*40 billion unique downloads excluding re-downloads and updates."

Reminds me of the channel stuffing that Samsung, Motorola, and others did to tout their tablets sales.

Also reminds me of articles that identify the dominance of Android 9 or 10 months after an iPhone has shipped (and when a flagship Android device has recently shipped).

Anyone know of any recent (& free) country by country statistics, showing total sales figures on the app store?