Apple says its App Store blocked $9B+ in fraudulent transactions over the past five years, with $2B in just 2024, and rejected ~2M risky app submissions in 2024
Apple on Tuesday announced new figures related to its App Store's ability to protect app developers and consumers from fraud.
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's latest disclosure extends a recurring set of App Store enforcement reports: it previously said it had stopped more than $7 billion in potentially fraudulent transactions from 2020 through 2023, including more than $1.8 billion in 2023. The new figures add 2024 to that record and pair transaction screening with app-submission enforcement.
The continuity matters because Apple has consistently presented store review and payment controls as linked safeguards, from its 2020 app and update rejections to its 2022 fraud-prevention report.
First-order effects
- Apple says consumers and developers avoided more than $2 billion in potentially fraudulent App Store transactions during 2024.
- Roughly 2 million app submissions deemed risky were denied access to the App Store in 2024, directly limiting distribution for those submissions and their developers.
Second-order effects
- The figures give Apple fresh evidence for maintaining intensive review and transaction controls, while legitimate developers must continue to meet the same screening requirements.
- Fraudulent operators face a narrower route into Apple's marketplace as submission review and payment-related enforcement operate together.
Third-order effects
- If these annual disclosures continue, App Store safety enforcement becomes a more visible part of Apple's case for the value of a centrally governed marketplace, alongside the platform's commercial terms.
- The pattern points to app-distribution gatekeeping increasingly being evaluated not only by approval rules, but also by the platform's ability to identify harmful transactions and risky submissions.
The trend: Apple is increasingly quantifying marketplace enforcement as part of the broader debate over the value and control of curated app-distribution platforms.