Apple made an estimated $64 billion USD (about $81.2 billion CAD) in revenue from the App Store in 2020.
The figure comes from CNBC, which calculated the estimate by comparing Apple’s publicly-released figures. The iPhone-maker doesn’t share how much it makes from the App Store, but it does annually share how much developers have earned from the platform since it launched (this year that figure passed $200 billion USD).
CNBC took the 2020 figure and substracted it from the 2019 amount to determine how much developers made last year alone, then accounted for Apple’s 30 percent cut. Although the numbers may not be entirely accurate, without public reporting, a rough estimate is enough to give us a picture of how much Apple makes from the App Store.
In 2019, Apple made an estimated $50 billion USD (about $63.5 billion CAD). That makes this year’s estimated $64 billion USD a whopping 28 percent increase.
The Verge notes that, while it’s hard to pinpoint an exact reason for the increased growth, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic likely helped. With people spending more time at home, chances are they’re spending more on apps and games to keep themselves entertained.
At the same time, 2020 saw some significant changes to and pushback against Apple’s App Store model. For years, Apple has taken a 30 percent cut from purchases made through the platform, but the company adjusted the number this year. It now takes a 15 percent cut from developers who make under $1 million a year through the App Store. However, The Verge notes that likely didn’t impact revenue significantly as analysts estimate the top 2 percent of App Store developers generate about 95 percent of the revenue.
As for pushback, developers have called out Apple for allegedly abusing its control over iOS and the App Store to maintain a monopoly over the ecosystem. Epic Games’ legal challenge ultimately became a spearhead for these complaints, but we likely won’t see a significant resolution until 2021.
Despite these things, Apple is clearly making a ton of money from the App Store, and that likely won’t change any time soon.