If sales stay at the current pace, Apple stands to reap at least $360 million a year in new revenue from the App Store, Apple CEO Steve Jos told the WSJ. "This thing's going to crest a half a billion, soon," he added. "Who knows, maybe it will be a $1 billion marketplace at some point in time."

Apple isn't likely to derive much in the way of direct profit from the business, Jobs said. The company is keeping only 30 percent of the proceeds from application sales -- about enough to cover expenses from credit-card transactions and other costs of running the online store -- while the programs' creators keep 70 percent, the WSJ adds.

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