Apple's iOS App Store hits 100B downloads, pays out $30B to developers

In an update to developers at WWDC, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that the company recently exceeded 100 billion downloads at the iOS App Store, and has generated $30 billion for developers.

Cook also played a promotional video on the impact of the App Store, which claimed that the average person has 119 apps, and that some 850 apps are downloaded each second. Making an appearance in the video were several celebrities such astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson and film director J.J. Abrams.

The App Store first launched in 2008 alongside iPhone OS 2.0 and the iPhone 3G. Since then it has come to other devices including the iPod touch and iPad, and evolved considerably in terms of layout, features, and organization. Most recently, Apple revamped the Games section to focus on curated lists, making it harder for less ethical developers to exploit ranking algorithms.

Apple also used the keynote to announced things like iOS 9, with public transit directions and iPad multitasking, plus the open-source Swift 2 programming language, and an evolved Apple Pay.

7 Comments

damn_its_hot 1213 comments · 15 Years

About 9 years ago

"...and has generated $30 billion for developers...."

Ah, Apple keeps 30% and developers get 70%. Although there are industries and companies that work that way Apple does not rape the developers like that.

chris_ca 2540 comments · 18 Years

[quote name="Damn_Its_Hot" url="/t/186639/apples-ios-app-store-hits-100b-downloads-pays-out-30b-to-developers#post_2732570"]"...[COLOR=181818]and has generated $30 billion for developers...."[/COLOR] Ah, Apple keeps 30% and developers get 70%.[/quote] Ah, correct. That means Apple has collected around $10 billion. [quote]Although there are industries and companies that work that way Apple does not rape the developers like that.[/quote] Like what?

jbdragon 2312 comments · 10 Years

Quote:

Originally Posted by Damn_Its_Hot

Google and Amazon charge the same 70/30 radio. Any Free Apps, where there are a whole lot, well 30% of FREE is ZERO!!!

hellofriend 19 comments · 10 Years

According to one survey of 252 iOS game developers, the top 20% of developers earn 97% of the revenue, and the bottom 80% of developers earn only 3% of the revenue. Furthermore, it shows that 50% of developers made less than $3,000 lifetime revenue on the App Store, only 25% of developers made more than $30,000 lifetime total revenue, and 25% of developers have made less than $200.

As to which developers are making the most money, the survey shows that it is not individual but rather larger developers:

"in general, larger groups of developers are able to create games that earn more money. Wagering a guess, this is perhaps because they are able to create games that are larger in scope, more technically interesting, and more polished, because they have more people to work on the game and provide input into its improvement".

Another survey (not just iOS) of over 8,000 developers shows that:

"17% of developers who are interested in making money generate no revenue related to apps at all. A further 18% of developers make less than $100 per month and the next 17%, bringing us to a total of 52%, make less than $1000 per month".

One conclusion the survey reveals is that "the app economy is maturing and larger companies are finding much better ways of making money with apps".

With different data sets and sizes other surveys will provide different results but likely lead to the same conclusion: most developers aren’t making a lot of money selling on the App Store, while a few are making a lot of money, and most are not sustainable businesses.

http://www.streamingcolour.com/blog/2011/09/28/results-ios-game-revenue-survey/

https://www.developereconomics.com/reports/developer-economics-q1-2015/