As of the 16th January 2011, Firemint had sold 3,881,634 copies of Flight Control for the iPhone, giving them a firm place in the all-time highest selling iPhone app list in many countries around the world. The game was originally launched on March 5th 2009, and within 3 months it had sold a million copies, then by this time last year it had hit 2 million with around 46% of sales in the US, 19% in the UK, and 8% in Australia.

They have obviously done something right in the past twelve months, because they have nearly doubled their sales this year, with over 1.5 million sales in the US, 700,000 sales in the UK, and 300,000 sales in Australia since launch. In the graph released by Firemint (click the header image to view it in full size), spikes in sales occurred with the introduction of the iPhone 4’s high resolution Retina Display support, and with the launch of the Game Center multiplayer system, while there was smaller yet not insignificant spike again at Christmas 2010.

No doubt the publicity from the releases of Flight Control HD for the iPad and Mac App Store has fuelled the iPhone app sales, and the upcoming Android version is sure to be a hit as well. This is great news for the Australian games industry as a whole, especially following Firemint’s recent nomination for the award of “Excellence in Design” for Real Racing 2 at the International Mobile Gaming Awards.