Sunday, January 24, 2010

iPhone Piracy May Have Cost Apple, Developers $450M

[newsfactor] An analysis estimates that jailbroken iPhones have downloaded three applications for every paid app, costing Apple, Inc. and App Store developers $450 million. Sites such as Cydia offer iPhones pirated software free or cheaper than Apple's App Store. The report's authors estimated the number of jailbroken Apple iPhones at 7.5 million.

Apple iPhones that have been jailbroken, modified to allow unapproved applications, have cost the computer giant and its developers Relevant Products/Services some $450 million, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the financial news site 24/7 Wall St. The reports says a staggering 1.53 billion pirated applications have been downloaded, or three for every legitimate, paid download.

Citing research by Sanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi, the report says between 13 percent and 21 percent of the three billion downloads from Apple's App Store since it began in July 2008 were for paid applications at an average cost of $3. The store also offers many free apps.

That amounts to income of between $60 million and $110 million per quarter as of the time of the research, when 127,632 applications were available.

iPhone Piracy May Have Cost Apple, Developers $450M

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