Roger Fingas
Starting on Christmas Eve, App Store shoppers spent over $890 million in a period of just seven days, Apple revealed on Thursday, adding that people spent another $300 million on New Year's Day alone.
For the whole of 2017 iOS developers received $26.5 billion, a 30 percent jump versus 2016, Apple marketing head Phil Schiller said. Typically Apple claims a 30 percent cut from App Store sales, though that amount can shrink for subscriptions under some circumstances.
The company incidentally noted that Niantic's Pokemon Go returned to the top of the charts on Dec. 21. That coincides with the addition of an improved augmented reality mode, based on Apple's ARKit platform.
Apple is often eager to tout the success of the App Store, which is the only option for iPhone and iPad owners with non-jailbroken hardware. It's presumably interested in comparing against Google Play, which is generally less profitable despite Android devices outnumbering iOS.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Oliver Haslam
8 Comments
I’ll bet there’s a bevy of iTunes gift cards not yet used, too.
Apple is thrilled comparing their app store revenue to Google's which is fine for Apple. Google is even more thrilled that Apple has no one else to compare to which is better for them. As recently as 6 years ago everyone including Apple would have thought that Microsoft would have the #2 app store due to their size, reputation, experience and presence on desktop and gaming consoles. One would have figured that Yahoo, Nokia, BlackBerry, Amazon, Wal Mart and/or the mobile carriers would have been in their respective places down the line. Nope. Google uses their market share approach to crush Microsoft and the rest. Despite having zero experience as a commercial software company or any other type of company with a track record of creating end user products instead of Ifree internet services. In short SOMEONE was going to be #2 to Apple and Google is thrilled that it is them. Especially since unlike Apple and Microsoft mobile devices and software isn't their #1 business anyway. Meaning that they successfully became #2 to Apple in the global mobile industry as a side business to their main one. That is the part that must really xting for Microsoft - software is 80% of their business - and what is left of Nokia and BlackBerry. As well as Yahoo who was the #1 internet company by far before Android (and Facebook)