Going by Apple’s Tuesday announcement, as many as 1.5 billion iPhone apps have been sold by the App Store thus far, indicating yet another new milestone for the company within a year of the opening of the App Store!

Talking about the landmark number of downloaded applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch, in a press release, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said: “The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality. With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.”

Undoubtedly, Apple has maintained a comfortable lead in selling mobile applications, via its popular App Store - which presently serves customers in 77 countries; however, the company is still has a lot to achieve before it can emerge as the world’s leading cell phone provider.

The App Store 1.5 billion application downloads’ feat appears all the more significant, considering the speed at which the milestone has been achieved. Within nine months of the launch of the App Store, the month of April saw Apple touching the momentous figure of 1 billion apps downloaded; and a mere three months later, another 500 million apps have been sold!

Moreover, the arrival of the new iPhone 3GS is expected to give a further boost to the already-enviable apps downloaded numbers!