By Angela Moscaritolo, PCMag.com

In spite of all its troubles, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) has something to celebrate — its app store, the BlackBerry App World, has passed 3 billion downloads.

"BlackBerry smartphone and PlayBook users around the world have downloaded over three billion apps since BlackBerry App World launched!" RIM said in a blog post Friday. "Three billion app downloads averages out to over 2.5 million downloads each day."

It took BlackBerry users just over three years to hit that mark, installing apps for devices such as the BlackBerry Bold 9930, Torch 9860, and the PlayBook tablet. The BlackBerry App World launched in April 2009, and currently has about 90,000 apps available for BlackBerry smartphones and the PlayBook tablet.

RIM said that the number of daily app downloads continues to increase. BlackBerry users downloaded the first billion apps in just over two years. About seven months later, the App World reached 2 billion downloads. Users downloaded the remaining billion apps in the past six months.

Apple's App Store, in comparison, hit 3 billion downloads in less than 18 months and reached the 25 billion app download mark in March. Google's Android Market reached 3 billion in about 27 months, and Microsoft's Windows Phone marketplace has yet to hit that mark.

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