Apple today announced that its global developer community has earned over $70 billion USD since the App Store launched in 2008. The App Store is home to the most innovative apps in the world and in the past 12 months alone, downloads have grown over 70 per cent.
"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.”
Games make up the most popular types of apps on the App Store with 25% of the total, followed by business, education, lifestyle and entertainment.
From breakout hits like Pokémon GO and Super Mario Run to other standout launches such as CancerAid, SPACE by THIX, Zones for Training with Exercise Intensity, Vanido, Ace Tennis and Havenly, customers discover and experience new apps and games every day on the App Store.
Since the release of iOS 10 last fall, iPhone and iPad users have also experienced new engaging and creative ways to connect, such as giving a friend a Starbucks gift card using Apple Pay, collaborating on a fashion design sketch using Prêt à Template, or making someone smile with an endless assortment of stickers.
Subscriptions as a revenue stream
With the subscription business model now available to developers across all 25 app categories, the App Store’s active paid subscriptions are up 58 per cent year over year. Customers are enjoying subscriptions across a wide variety of services including longtime favourites such as Netflix and Hulu, as well as newcomers like Tastemade, the modern, mobile-first cooking network, and photo editing apps like Over and Enlight.
App Store developers from around the world create apps for customers in 155 countries that improve lives, rethink industries and shape culture. Gaming and Entertainment are top-grossing categories, and Lifestyle apps, as well as Health and Fitness, have experienced over 70 per cent growth in the past year. The Photo and Video category is also among the fastest-growing at nearly 90 per cent growth.