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App Store Earnings For Developers Exceed $70 Billion; App Downloads Up 70% YoY (macstories.net)
Apple announced today that since it launched in 2008, developers have earned over $70 billion from the App Store. From an article: "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." According to Apple's press release, subscriptions saw a 58 percent increase year over year, fueled by their availability in all 25 app categories. Games and Entertainment are the App Store's top grossing categories, Lifestyle and Health and Fitness apps have experienced 70 percent growth, and the Photo and Video category is up over 90 percent.
When I was at RIM, the iPhone 4 came out with one of the benefits for buyers was the extensive library of apps that were available for download. The iPhone SDK was free or a very nominal cost. To develop an app for the Blackberry at the time required an expensive SDK as well as a costly testing process to make sure the app met their standards.
RIM at the time (and I talked about this with very senior executives) made it clear that the way Apple was doing would destroy Apple as professionals wouldn't want something which had unvetted and, to their eye, silly apps.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
That's a really cool anecdote, bro, but we know that you don't actually have any friends, so you're not fooling anyone.
I am unfamiliar with YoY as a term and had to google it.
All I could think was "Zoidberg is happy!"
Ohh, you and your charset are so edgy.
Since Apple takes 30% from AppStore sales.
I'm glad you asked. It's easy to calculate what the average is for those who aren't in the top 1,000.
$70 billion 2.2 million current apps gives 31k per app per 9 years. say 3.5 k per year. Now you have to deduct for apps that used to be in the store but are no more, so let's be generous and say the rate of attrition is 50% over the last 9 years (it's probably much higher). That means the average app makes $1.75 k per year.
So let's be nice again, and say that the top 1,000 apps take 90% of the revenue (it's probably much more). That leaves the 4.4 million apps (we have to include those that are no longer there, remember?) to split $7 billion over 9 years, or $1,509 each over 9 years, which works out to $176 a year.
So, how many apps does the average app developer have to crank out to make $10 an hour ($20,800 per year) for a 40 hour week (260 days, no 2 weeks holiday for YOU!) You would need to crank out 118 apps in 260 working 8-hour days in a year..That's more than 2 apps a day. With no money left for overhead, income tax, etc., and no time or budget for promoting your app or support.
Most app devs are either suckers or they've got a customer who is a sucker.
And remember, this is an average. Half will be making less than $10 an hour pumping out 118 apps a year.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Apple deducts VAT; in the USA sales tax is added to what the customer pays. That money goes straight to various tax offices in the world. The rest goes to the companies. And Apple verifies you have a company. The companies book it as income, deduct their expenses, and pay their taxes. What did you think how this works?
We talking about Apple or RIM?
Yes
Apple's just announced quarterly revenue $52.9 billion.mmMostly from the iPhone. So in less than 6 months, Apple's revenue exceeds their all time payments to developers for the software which makes the iPhone attractive in the first place. Amazing.
Nuf Sed.
They used to say: Apple sells the most smartphones. Then it was: Apple users spend the most time per session. Then it was: Apple makes the most money per phone. Now they use app store numbers to claim success. What's next? Number of iPhones seen at Starbucks?
lucm, indeed.
Most app devs are either suckers or they've got a customer who is a sucker.
Spot on. Apple Store app devs are for the most part Apple customers. Gartner usually releases a report every year about the business of selling apps, and last year their research indicated that less than 1% of non-free apps are profitable.
lucm, indeed.
"YoY"? I understand they are happy with the result, but that is one of the strangest exclamations of joy I've ever heard, and I used to watch Ren and Stimpy. YoY!
(I know, it means "year over year", but I had to look it up.)
I write and publish Apps. A good chunk of the money I make on iOS & iTunes doesn't come from Apple but from advertisers like Google AdMob, Facebook Audience Network etc.
I'd love to know what chunk of the big app revenue pie is advertising revenue and not just in-app purchases?
Apple is missing from this market since it pulled out, and killed off iAds, a year ago.
It's important to remember, if you are thinking of getting into writing and publishing apps, that asking for app payments isn't the only, or main, means of monetising your work.
I'm glad you asked. It's easy to calculate what the average is for those who aren't in the top 1,000.
$70 billion 2.2 million current apps gives 31k per app per 9 years. say 3.5 k per year. Now you have to deduct for apps that used to be in the store but are no more, so let's be generous and say the rate of attrition is 50% over the last 9 years (it's probably much higher). That means the average app makes $1.75 k per year.
So let's be nice again, and say that the top 1,000 apps take 90% of the revenue (it's probably much more). That leaves the 4.4 million apps (we have to include those that are no longer there, remember?) to split $7 billion over 9 years, or $1,509 each over 9 years, which works out to $176 a year.
So, how many apps does the average app developer have to crank out to make $10 an hour ($20,800 per year) for a 40 hour week (260 days, no 2 weeks holiday for YOU!) You would need to crank out 118 apps in 260 working 8-hour days in a year..That's more than 2 apps a day. With no money left for overhead, income tax, etc., and no time or budget for promoting your app or support.
Most app devs are either suckers or they've got a customer who is a sucker.
And remember, this is an average. Half will be making less than $10 an hour pumping out 118 apps a year.
Are you saying you aren't good enough to to write an App that can attain that hypothetical Top 1,000?
"No reasonable person would believe our advertising"
If you think they're actually telling the truth with this $70B figure, I have to say LOL.
If this figure is accurate, then I'll bet this includes the $100/year/dev and whatever cost corporations need to pay for MDM, and the 30% that gets skimmed off... Wouldn't be surprised if it included the hardware (the desktop and phone) that devs have bought. Throw in the cell companies that need to pay APL multimillion dollars to just have their phone on the network.
Of course, this could be just a fake number...
This is royalty payments to App Developers. Nothing more, nothing less.
Well, it's not just the App. There's the promotion, support, etc. It certainly takes more than one person to do that for an app in the top 1,000. No matter how good it is, if it isn't promoted properly it won't be going anywhere, and crappy support will kill it quickly. :-)
Plus, I hate the whole "App Mania." It's a huge diversion of resources that could be better deployed elsewhere. I've spent the last month doing flood disaster relief work, and I've seen firsthand how what I do, along with everyone else, is improving people's lives in real ways. No app is going to give you the same emotional high that helping people who have literally lost everything except the clothes on their backs. And the need isn't going away tomorrow, or even next month ...
Honestly, I'd rather continue to do that. Consider it a kind of "don't be evil" as opposed to "don't do evil." It's simply wrong (aka "evil") to ignore someone who is in need if you can help them. I think most people feel that way, bu there are so many inhibitions and practicalities that prevent them from rising to the occasion. I get that, so I'm not going to judge those who don't act, but I've got to say, the hundreds of tons of food donated to feed the victims can't leave you unmoved. In the last week alone, we've probably distributed food to 1,000 people, plus making lunch for hundreds of clean-up volunteers, and the other regular stuff like community suppers for $2 a head, $5 a family for a 3-course meal, fund raising, etc. It's f'ing awesome.
At one point yesterday we had 3 families (representing 20 people - blended families tend to get large) simultaneously filling up shopping carts and trolleys to overflowing with whatever they needed. They've lost their homes and their cars. But when they left, they knew the community was behind them 100%. It's a real privilege to be able to do this.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Well, how can I make a decent snarky reply, when you have already obviously outclassed me?
Good on you, seriously.
Oh come one, you know I LIVE for when people snark me :-) You can do it! I have faith in you.
On a more serious note, the whole Apps mania is just another sign of the shift that has made software development "not fun" any more. Long ago, the thrill was in developing something that was useful or entertaining in its' own right, there wasn't this hysterical drive to monetize asap and walk away (serial entrepreneur now is just another term for huckster).
Things really started for fall apart with the "we must have a new version every year, and it must have a zillion new features", which caused a huge decline in quality - see what happened to Corel at version 4 as one example. Michael Copeland just had to juice his stock every year on schedule, so the motivation was monetary, not "We'll have the best of breed and the money will come." They're not quite the same when it comes to work environment and execution. Hence the rise of the psychopathic manager - and this happened all across the employment market, not just in IT. I blame Reagan. After all, even fish rot from the head. It certainly killed Borland. (side note - just to show how far it's declined, spell checker didn't recognize either Corel or Borland).
It's gotten to the point that major portions of the economy (IT, the military) need to continuously inflate bubbles. Crazy. And not sustainable.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.