Apple said that it has now passed the US$5.5 billion payment to developers mark, powered by cumulative sales to date of 410 million iOS units, including iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices.

In the company’s third quarter results call, Peter Oppenheimer, CFO, reiterated that there are currently more than 650,000 apps available in the iOS catalogue, including 225,000 titles specifically for iPad.

Earlier this year, Apple said there had been more than 30 billion apps downloaded from the store, at which point it had paid more than US$5 billion to its developer partners.

During the call yesterday, Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said that the company is “very sensitive to working with carriers to find the most efficient way to deal with data”. Addressing the increased volume of data and signaling traffic generated by smartphone users, Cook said: “We think that we are the most efficient smartphone on the market for smartphones that are in an app rich ecosystem”.