The iOS Economy, Updated

In its latest update on the App Store Apple reported that iOS developers earned $26.5 billion in 2017. A year ago the figure was $20 billion. The growth rate is then about 33%. The cumulative payments to developers can be calculated as $86.5 billion. This amount was generated in a span of less than 10 years, with the first billion paid by June 2010.

The following graph shows the history of cumulative payments and the corresponding payment rate (in $/yr.)

Note that this represents the payment to developers, not the spending by the customer. Apple keeps about 30% of the revenue.  The total spending on the App Store is then about 43% higher.1. The equivalent figures for spending on the App Store are shown below. Continue reading “The iOS Economy, Updated”

  1. During the last year some types of app subscriptions have been priced by Apple at 15% of gross so I adjusted the payment rate to 72% for 2017 []