Developers earned $20B from App Store in 2016, up 40% from 2015; January 1, 2017 saw biggest ever single day sales of $240M
Cupertino, California — Apple today announced that the App Store welcomed 2017 with its busiest single day ever on New Year's Day, capping a record-breaking holiday season …
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second straight January Apple has opened the year with an App Store earnings announcement: last year it reported $20B for 2015 and $1.1B over the holidays, and this year the figure jumps 40% to $20B for developers, with a record $240M single day on New Year's Day.
The cadence held: twelve months later Apple reported $300M on New Year's Day 2018 and $26.5B in developer earnings for 2017, confirming the holiday-season record release as an annual fixture and the store's growth at roughly $5B per year.
First-order effects
- Developers take home $20B for 2016, up 40% from 2015, meaning Apple's 30% commission base grew even faster than its previously reported pace.
- The $240M New Year's Day haul gives Apple a fresh headline metric for the holiday quarter just as it reports results.
Second-order effects
- Rival app platforms face pressure to match Apple's developer-payout messaging, since the $20B figure doubles as a recruiting pitch for iOS-first development.
- Each year's record resets expectations for the next: the 2016 numbers set the baseline against which the following year's $26.5B and $300M single day were measured.
Third-order effects
- Compounding at this rate, cumulative developer payouts scale from the $40B-since-2008 mark toward the $260B+ Apple later cited for 2021, making App Store commissions a structural pillar of Apple's services economics rather than a side business.
The trend: App Store spending is compounding at roughly 30-40% annually, with each New Year's Day setting a new single-day record and turning developer payouts into one of Apple's core recurring businesses.