The Guardian announced yesterday that its iPhone App has been downloaded almost 70,000 times in its first month of availability. That is significant because this is not a free app; each download costs £2.39 ($3.89 USD), meaning the newspaper publisher grossed some £164, 851 ($268,393 USD) in one month in new revenue.
From the press release: Up to and including Tuesday 12 January 2010, the Guardian App has been downloaded 68,979 times from the App Store. … The app launched on Monday 14 December 2009. The app is also now available in most European countries, as well as Australia, Canada and the US, having initially launched in the UK, Ireland and US.
As Journalism.co.uk writer Judith Townend noted, this new stream of revenue will provide “a little help in the fight against £100,000 per day GNM revenue losses, reported last year.”
On a related note: Check out Jonathan Stray’s review of 14 leading iPhone apps from news companies at the Online Journalism Blog.