Asymco breaks down the App Store numbers, finds iTunes economy is a $12 billion annual business

While corporations -- including Apple -- keep financial information locked away except for those items that require public disclosure, the job of Wall Street analysts like Horace Dediu of Asymco is to take bits of information scattered hither and yon and meld them into a more realistic model of how a company is performing. Dediu took App Store numbers released on January 7 by Apple, mixed it with existing info, and came to some fascinating conclusions:

Those results, taken directly from Dediu's post, show that sales of traditional media -- movies, TV, books and music -- are growing at about half the rate of apps. They also highlight that the sale of media and apps is a vibrant part of Apple's financial picture.