Apple has paid over $70 billion to App Store developers, profits up by 70 per cent
Ahead of its WWDC conference next week, Apple has revealed that its all-time earnings from the App Store developers have topped $70 billion. The App Store went live with the launch of the iPhone OS 2 in 2008 and which has exploded ever since.
In the last twelve months, the Cupertino giant has stated that Apple Store downloads has increased more than 70 per cent.
A $70 billion payout to developers implies to about a $30 billion dollar for Apple itself as it shares revenues in a 70/30 split for most transactions. On recent earnings calls, Apple has called out the strong revenue growth of its Services business. Much of those increases are attributable to the App Store income.
Apple SVP Phil Schiller, in a statement said the performance of the App Store was ‘simply mind blowing’. “People everywhere love apps and our customers are downloading them in record numbers,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Seventy billion dollars earned by developers is simply mind-blowing. We are amazed at all of the great new apps our developers create and can’t wait to see them again next week at our Worldwide Developers Conference,” said Schiller.
The company also highlighted ‘breakout hits’ like Pokemon Go as one of the reasons for the App Store’s continuing climb.
Apple has stated that the apps in the Gaming and Entertainment categories bring in the most revenue. This is also driven by popular freemium games with In-App Purchases and also content subscriptions like Netflix or Spotify for the media apps.
The company says the Photo and Video App Store category has seen the most growth in the last year, increasing at a rate close to 90 per cent. It also calls out Lifestyle, Health and Fitness as strong players rising more than 70 per cent.
Apple also revamped its policy on recurring subscriptions last year as an alternative monetization model for developers. Schiller stated that paid subscriptions have increased to 58 per cent over this year.
The Cupertino based software company is slated to announce its generation of its software platforms in a few days time at the WWDC 2017 keynote on Monday. This will also include the unveiling of the iOS 11, macOS 10.13, watchOS 4 and tvOS 11.
