Apple recently announced that over 1 billion applications had been downloaded from the App Store, a lofty number, but it's not clear how profitable the App Store has been for Apple. Enter Lightspeed Venture Partners, who have assembled an interesting analysis of App Store profits. Based upon their estimates, they believe Apple has made between $20-$45 million in revenue from the App Store.

A few highlights from their analysis.

• Ratio of paid to free apps is between 1:15 to 1:40 range.
• 25-60m paid apps have been sold over 9 months
• Average mean price of paid apps is $2.65
• The median price is $1.99
• Total revenue is guesstimated at $70-$160 million

When the App Store was first introduced, Steve Jobs said Apple wanted it as a "break even business model".  The profits are negligible for a company the size of Apple. The bigger numbers for them will be the number iPhones/iPod touch devices sold and the number of downloaded apps. People love the App Store and it sells hardware. The projected revenue numbers of $25-$45 million is simply icing on the cake.