Analysis: iOS users will be spending about $100M/day in 2018 on apps in the App Store, which has been growing at about $5B/year since mid-2011
In its latest update on the App Store Apple reported that iOS developers earned $26.5 billion in 2017. A year ago the figure was $20 billion.
Context & Ripple Effects
The $26.5B Apple says developers earned in 2017 extends a run the company has been reporting annually: $20B in 2016, itself up 40% from 2015, and cumulative payouts past $70B since the store launched in 2008. Asymco's contribution is the shape of the curve — roughly $5B of added developer earnings per year since mid-2011, which puts daily user spending on pace for about $100M in 2018.
What makes the projection worth tracking is how it compounds: the same arithmetic that yields $100M/day in 2018 later yields a store that grossed an estimated $64B+ in 2020, and a US commission line Appfigures puts at $10.1B by 2024. The 2018 figure is an early checkpoint on a growth rate that has proven durable.
First-order effects
- iOS developers enter 2018 with a payout pool that grew by $6.5B year-over-year, and Apple's own commission base grows in lockstep with every dollar of that $100M/day run rate.
Second-order effects
- Growth is coming from deeper wallets, not just more phones — Sensor Tower's data shows average US iPhone spend rose from $58 in 2017 to $79 in 2018 — so developer strategy shifts toward maximizing revenue per user rather than chasing download volume.
Third-order effects
- A commission stream this large and this predictable turns the App Store's take rate into a number worth independent measurement — the reason firms like Appfigures and Sensor Tower now publish their own estimates — and gives regulators and developers a concrete figure to argue over if the 30% cut is ever contested.
The trend: App Store spending is compounding along a remarkably steady ~$5B/year climb driven by rising spend per device, making Apple's storefront one of the most durable revenue engines in consumer tech.