Apple has paid app developers over $5 billion for App Store sales. Here’s a list of things you can buy with $5 billion

Tim Cook announced in Monday’s keynote that iOS developers have been paid over $5 billion for App Store sales.

Wow.

For fun, I put together a list of things you can buy with 5 billion dollars:

162 Gulfstream 550 private jets.

All of IKEA’s combined profits from 2009 and 2010.

The entire New York Yankees franchise, 3 times over.

The cost to produce and market the movie Avatar, over 21 times.

The White House, 20 times.

7,175 gold bars.

48,193 miles of Illinois roads, enough to wrap around the Earth twice.

33 trips to the moon.

3.5 times the GDP of Belize.

66 million 1-hour Swedish massages.

And the list wouldn’t be complete without this: 50 million ZAGGsparqs. What a steal!

Like Cook said, the App Store is its own economy. Apple has more customer credit cards on file than any other company. And the buying process is simple and easy. People are happy to pay. I’d love to see a comparable number on payments to Android developers.

If anyone has doubts about Apple’s ability to carry on after Steve Jobs, the network affect alone of the App Store will keep Apple ahead for years to come.

Trevor McKendrick

Trevor is the founder of a successful iOS development company that earns him more than his day job. A lover of all things tech, travel, and the Internet, you can find him on Twitter @trevmckendrick.