Apple announced today that App Store sales topped $10 billion in 2013, including a record breaking $1 billion in December alone, where App Store customers downloaded almost three billion apps. Overall, Apple has paid out over $15 billion to App Store developers.

“We’d like to thank our customers for making 2013 the best year ever for the App Store,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “The lineup of apps for the holiday season was astonishing and we look forward to seeing what developers create in 2014.”

In its press release, Apple also highlighted a number of popular and emerging apps and developers while drawing special attention to a few larger developers that particularly embraced the new look and features of iOS 7, which was released in September.

Apple announced a year ago that the App Store had passed 40 billion downloads, with half of those coming in 2012. The company also announced that December 2012 brought over two billion downloads, with 500 million user accounts registered.

In May 2013, Apple hit 50 billion worldwide app downloads, which it celebrated with a promotion for a $10,000 gift card for the person who downloaded the 50 billionth app. The App Store also reached one million live apps in December.