Apple released some figures last night that showed the global app store developer community has earned over $70 billion since it launched in 2008. And there’s no sign of slowing down: in the past 12 months alone, downloads have grown over 70 per cent, says Apple.
The top grossing categories? Gaming and Entertainment, of course.
“People everywhere love apps and our customers are downloading them in record numbers,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Seventy billion dollars earned by developers is simply mind-blowing. We are amazed at all of the great new apps our developers create and can’t wait to see them again next week at our Worldwide Developers Conference.”
Subscriptions are another big reason for growth. Since the subscription business model was made available to developers across all 25 app categories, the App Store’s active paid subscriptions are up 58 per cent year over year. We’re talking apps like Netflix as well as photo editing apps like Over and Enlight.
Gaming and Entertainment are the top-grossing categories, and Lifestyle apps, as well as Health and Fitness, have experienced over 70 per cent growth in the past year. The Photo and Video category is also among the fastest-growing at nearly 90 per cent growth.