Apple said that there have been 18 billion downloads from its App Store, and that customers are downloading more than 1 billion per month. The data was released shortly after Google said that Android Market downloads had passed the 10 billion mark.

According to the Google figures published last week, while the company was later to launch Android Market, the growth of smartphones using the platform has seen it gather momentum, growing from three million to ten million faster than the App Store. Google also said that Android customers are downloading more than one billion apps per month.

Apple’s assertion that 18 billion apps had been downloaded by the start of December 2011 would mean an increase of 3 billion from the 15 billion announced in July 2011. This compares with growth of 4 billion for Android Market from July 2011 to December 2011.

While Google has managed to generate some impressive download figures for Android Market, according to a report published last month it has only generated 7 percent of the gross revenue made by Apple’s App Store. Monetisation has widely been cited as an issue with Android Market.