More devs earn first $1M in annual revenue from App Store than Google Play

Over 900 app publishers are expected to earn more than $1 million in net revenue from digital app storefronts in 2021, a report claims, with the App Store minting more million-dollar earners than the Google Play Store.

The app economy has been lucrative for many developers, enabling practically anyone to produce an app and to make money from it around the world. In a new Sensor Tower report, it seems that there will be another 900 developers to be included in the pool of high earners by the end of 2021.

The report forecasts that 906 mobile app publishers will earn their first $1 million in net avenue revenue in 2021. The total figure is nearly double that of the 475 publishers to earn their first annual million in 2016.

While a considerable improvement over 2016, the figures are actually a small reduction from 2020, which saw 1,003 publishers reached the annual net revenue milestone. It is thought that 2020 benefited from a higher number of downloads triggered by work-from-home initiatives in the wake of COVID-19's spread.

On a per-store basis, Apple's App Store continues to take the lead over Google Play, with 581 publishers reaching the figure for the first time versus 325 for Google Play. However, Sensor Tower believes the gap is starting to shrink.

Drilling down to the U.S. marketplace, it is thought that 408 publishers will make the mark across both stores, with the App Store contributing 274 and 134 for Google Play. This will be a 9% drop from 2020's figures, with the App Store down 10% year-on-year and Google Play down 6%.

In 2017, the App Store produced 2.7 times the number of publishers managing the milestone than Google Play. However, a year-on-year projected spend increase of 23.5% on Google Play for 2021 outpaces the 17.7% growth expected of the App Store, at $85.1 billion in consumer spending .

On an app category basis, games made up 32% of apps in the App Store giving publishers their first annual million-dollar net revenues, up from a 31% share in 2020 and 2019. Social networking apps form 11% of the 2021 figure, followed by entertainment apps and health and fitness apps at 7% each.

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4 Comments

lkrupp

said about 2 years ago

But developers are angry, outraged, livid that they have to pay Apple a commission to hawk their warez in the App Store. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

JinTech

said about 2 years ago

lkrupp said:

But developers are angry, outraged, livid that they have to pay Apple a commission to hawk their warez in the App Store. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.

My favorite was always the video of the developer who bought his parent's house. These days developers are too greedy. We need more like the one in the video!

dewme

said about 2 years ago

Chances are that these 900 (out of how many?) developers are extraordinarily motivated and talented. They would probably do pretty well in any venture that they embarked on, but perhaps not with the same level of direct rewards. A lot of these developers would probably be working for someone else and that someone else would be reaping a share of the rewards of their work. Or they’d be struggling for years to get their products noticed using traditional marketing approaches.

The big difference with the App Store is gives people like these 900 and those who are making less but still showing a profit a better opportunity to personally and directly benefit from their work by removing a lot of the overhead and barriers for getting into a specific marketplace - the captive market for Apple apps.

The real issue I see with App Store detractors is their lack of understanding between possibility and probability. The App Store provides anyone with the possibility of success. But their probability of success, the 900 divided by a far larger number, is still determined by the value that paying customers associate with the product they develop. This is no different than any other product development venture in any other marketplace. In other words their success is determined by the merit of their own work that they control, not Apple and not the App Store.

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