It’s hard to judge what normal is since Apple’s App store has only been live since July 11, but it seems Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) had a blockbuster holiday period. Of course, this is somewhat to be expected since retailers and content companies timed their best offerings to come out during this period, but still the statistics are hard to ignore. Apple said today that in the past 42 days, 200 million iPhone apps were downloaded for an average of 4.8 million a day. That works out to be about twice than normal. In a 45 day period ended in early December, Apple said 100 million apps were downloaded for an average of about 2.2 million a day. Apple has now experienced a total of 500 million downloads and has 15,000 apps—free and paid—available in the store.

SEE ALSO: Retailers And Content Companies Flood The iPhone App Store For The Holidays

In case you want more evidence that the holiday period experienced heavier traffic than normal. Electronic Arts (NSDQ: ERTS) told mocoNews that U.S. app store sales increased 340 percent compared to a non-holiday period, and 6 out of 7 EA titles made it into the Top 25 Paid Apps category over the period. But then again, maybe that had more to do with the sale it hosted, which discounted games by as much as 50 percent. The sale was considered so successful, it extended the offer past the holidays.

Picture of EA’s Monopoly iPhone game (on sale for $4.99).