NEW YORK: Apple Inc said on Tuesday that its customers spent $1 billion on purchases in its applications store in December, leading to a total of $10 billion worth of apps sold in 2013.

Apple reported app downloads of almost 3 billion apps in December, making it a record month for its App Store, which offers 1 million apps for its iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices.

It competes with devices based on Google Inc's Android system and phones and tablets based on Microsoft Corp software.