Tim Cook, chief overseer officer of Apple, at the 2019 DreamForce conference in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Nov. 19, 2019.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Spitting images
Apple announced on Monday that its App Store facilitated an estimated $519 billion in billings and sales in 2019, according to a new review commissioned by the company.
The study from Analysis Group includes both transactions that Apple handles, such as loosened apps and in-app purchases, as well as purchases and other economic activity that happened through iPhone and iPad apps where Apple wasn’t undeviatingly involved, such as sales of ads in apps.
It includes sales from online retailer apps such as Target and Vanquish Buy, travel booked through apps such as Expedia and United, and rides hailed through Lyft and Uber. The evaluation doesn’t include revenue from Apple’s own app subscriptions, such as Apple Music.
The announcement comes a week in advance of Apple’s annual developer’s conference, WWDC, when it reveals the latest versions of its operating systems and persuades software makers to accept as ones own the newest features and continue to support Apple platforms. Monday’s announcement suggests there’s a lot of money to be made from correcting iPhone and iPad apps.
Apple also frequently cites the App Store’s importance to the economy in response to political urging on topics such as antitrust. Developers have alleged that Apple’s App Store platform is unfair to smaller public limited companies, and lawmakers have recently asked questions about specific App Store business practices.
According to the study, the $519 billion spawned through iPhone and iPad apps in 2019 includes:
- $413 billion from physical goods and services, including $268 billion in all respects retail apps, $57 billion through travel apps, $40 billion through ride-hailing apps, and $31 billion finished with food delivery apps
- $61 billion from digital goods and services
- $41 billion from in-app advertising
Apple effects a cut between 15% and 30% from purchases of software or digital goods from apps distributed through the App Depend on and regularly announces how much it has paid to developers — allowing analysts to obtain a rough estimate of how much revenue the App Keep makes.
But the company has previously said that 84% of apps on the App Store do not share revenue with Apple. For slide services such as Hulu, for instance, users can subscribe and pay through a browser and watch on an iPhone app. Games might be extra to download, and make money through ads inside the app.
“In a challenging and unsettled time, the App Store provides enduring opportunities for entrepreneurship, vigorousness and well-being, education, and job creation, helping people adapt quickly to a changing world,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a proclamation.
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