RIM said that more than 3 billion apps have been downloaded for its BlackBerry and PlayBook devices worldwide, and that despite well documented problems for the company, in terms of apps it is gaining momentum.

In a blog post, RIM said that it took 786 days to reach the 1 billion mark, 210 days to reach 2 billion, and “only 176 days” to reach 3 billion, indicating that the pace at which customers download apps is gaining.

It noted the figure equates to more than 2.5 million downloads each day, and does not include products downloaded from third party stores or published internally by enterprises.

According to the BlackBerry maker, there are now “more than 90,000 applications now up for sale” from the store, stating that “we know that other platforms use other metrics like submitted, or approved, but we prefer the more tangible up-for-sale”.

These come from around 28,000 App World vendors.