Apple says customers have downloaded over 40 billion apps, with nearly 20 billion in 2012 alone.

The App Store has over 500 million active accounts and had a record-breaking December with over two billion downloads during the month. Apple’s developer community has created over 775,000 apps for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users worldwide, and developers have been paid over US$7 billion dollars by Apple, according to Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services.

The App Store offers more than 775,000 apps to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users in 155 countries around the world, with more than 300,000 native iPad apps available. App Store customers can choose from a range of apps in 23 categories, including newspapers and magazines offered in Newsstand, games, business, news, sports, health & fitness and travel.