Apple’s App Store made $64 billion in revenue in 2020, a figure which represents a 28 percent increase from the estimated $50 billion it made in 2019 according to reports by CNBC.
The latest report signifies a healthy growth for the App Store which recorded an estimated increase of 3.1 percent between 2018 and 2019.
It is quite difficult to pin down factors responsible for the surge in growth, however, some observers have linked it to the COVID-19 pandemic as there was a spike in the purchase of games as well as subscriptions to fitness and productivity apps.
It is also worth noting that when Apple makes reports on its financials, it collates the money it makes from the App Store with its services revenue, which is by far its fastest-growing category. The company takes a 30 percent cut of most of the money coming into the App Store, which, while there are caveats and exceptions, represents billions of dollars of revenue. Apple typically guards its take carefully, despite recent pushback from developers like Hey.com and even legal challenges from Epic.
The company has however loosened its grip recently as it now only takes a 15 percent cut from developers who make under $1 million a year from the App Store. This is not likely to hurt the company’s revenue estimate, as analysts have approximated that the top 2 percent of App Store developers generate 95 percent of the revenue
