Apple Celebrating Its Service Business, As It Had A Landmark Year In 2019

Apple announced on Wednesday that the App Store has generated $155 billion in revenue for developers since its launch in 2008, up from the $120 billion revealed in January 2019.

Based on developers getting a 70% share of app revenues, this means that the total revenue of the App Store in 2019 can reach up to $50 billion and generate about 15 billion dollars in net income for Apple.

Apple does not share the total annual revenue of its App Store. But since 2013, Apple has released statistics on the App Store every January, including the total amount paid to developers. Developers get 70% of the commission on the App Store, expanding to 85% in the second year of subscription. With this data, the total revenue of the App Store can be estimated from the amount paid to the developer.

But, the growth of the App Store is slowing. In 2019, Apple paid developers $35 billion, which is only 2.9% higher than the $34 billion in 2018, a notable slowdown compared to the 30% gain in spending in 2017.

In addition, Apple also published other data today, including:

• Users spent $1.42 billion on App Store between December 24 and 31
• Record single-day revenue of the App Store‒$386 million, which was set on January 1, 2020
• Approximately 50% of Apple Music users have used the new Live Lyrics feature
• Apple News has more than 100 million monthly active users in the US, UK, Australia, and Canada
• Apple Podcasts has more than 800,000 programs in over 155 countries
• 75% of iCloud users protect their account by enabling the two-factor authentication

In a response released today, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, said: "2019 was the biggest year for Services in Apple’s history. We introduced several exciting new experiences for our customers, all while setting the standard for user privacy and security. We begin the new decade with incredible momentum and gratitude to our customers who have shown such enthusiasm for all of our Services, and we continue to celebrate the work of the world’s best creators, storytellers, journalists, and developers.”