Apple’s Apps Flying Off the Virtual Shelves: 6.6 Million Downloads Per Day

Another milestone Apple is happy to brag about: The company says it has served up two billion apps for the iPhone and iPod touch from its iTunes store.

How do we put that in context? A couple different ways.

For starters, let’s note that the velocity of apps Apple (AAPL) is delivering is increasing: It took Steve Jobs and company a little more than a year to serve up the first 1.5 billion apps, which averages 4.1 million downloads per day. But Apple moved the next 500 million apps within 76 days. That’s a 6.6 million-per-day average.

Next, let’s acknowledge that while the money Apple makes from the app store is secondary to its core hardware business, it’s still a sizable amount.

Even if you assume that the majority of apps are downloaded for free, the remainder may still be generating sales of $200 million a month, mobile ad network AdMob guesstimates. Apple keeps 30 percent of that, which works out to be $720 million a year. Not bad for a side business.