South Korea overtakes UK in volume of free iPhone apps downloads

Still behind the US and China, but that's without a dedicated games category says Distimo.

More than one million free iPhone apps are downloaded every day in South Korea, according to the latest report from analytics firm Distimo.

That makes it the third-ranked country in the world for free iPhone downloads, overtaking the UK. Distimo claims that the Chinese App Store racks up 1.5 million free daily downloads, while the US is well ahead with four million.

However, Distimo points out that the South Korean population is significantly smaller than both those countries: 49 million people versus 313 million (US) and 1.3 billion (China).

"The other big curiosity for this country is that it has reached 1 million of daily download volume in the Top 300 applications without the Games category," writes Distimo's Borbala Bakonyi. "This achievement is stunning because in each and every country – where it’s available – this category has the biggest share of all downloads."

The lack of a Games category is due to South Korean laws requiring games to be reviewed by the Game Rating Board there, although those laws were changed in July this year, meaning that the App Store (and Android Market) may soon have a dedicated Games category once more.