Apple said that customers have downloaded more than 40 billion apps from its store, with almost half of these made in 2012 alone.

The cumulative payouts to developers topped $7 billion.

According to the company, the App Store has more than 500 million active accounts, and saw a “record-breaking” December with two billion downloads made during the month.

Figures from Distimo and Flurry both show that December was a bumper month for apps, aided by the Christmas holiday period and the activation of new smartphones and tablets given as gifts.

Apple’s store has a catalogue of 775,000 apps for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. It is available in 155 countries worldwide.

Among the success stories highlighted were “the husband and wife team at Imangi Studios”, who saw their game Temple Run downloaded more than 75 million times, and Backflip Studios and Supercell, which together brought in more than $100 million in revenue.