Apple confirmed Monday that its App Store now boasts more than 300,000 applications.

The 300,000 apps are available in 90 countries, Apple said in a statement. There are more than 40,000 native iPad apps.

Overall, customers have downloaded more than seven billion apps since the store's inception in 2008. The 125 million iOS users all over the globe can choose from apps in 20 categories, Apple said.

Apple made the announcement as part of its iOS 4.2 release, which was made available for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch earlier today.

Rumors about the number of apps in the App Store have been floating around for about a month. In October, third-party application tracking service Mobiclix reported that the Apple App Store hit 300,000 apps, but Apple did not confirm that number. At the time, analytics sites 148apps.biz and AppShopper.com put the active number of App Store apps at 279,000 and 280,000, respectively. Apple later announced the 300,000 number during an earnings call.

Apple's App Store reportedly hit 250,000 apps in August. The Android Market, meanwhile, hit 100,000 apps last month; it opened in October 2008. The Windows Phone 7 Marketplace had more than 1,000 apps three weeks after it debuted.

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 8pm Eastern to clarify that the App Store topped rather than hit 300K.