Sensor Tower: Apple's App Store had 164 publishers earn their first $1M in 2018, up ~15% YoY, nearly double the 88 on Google Play, which was up 24% YoY
again Usman Qureshi / iPhone in Canada Blog : Apple Created Twice as Many New Million-Dollar Publishers in 2018 as Google Lars Jörnow / eqtventures : Congratulations to Small Giant Games as it joins Zynga!
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes out a year Sensor Tower began by reporting Apple's App Store pulled in $38.5B in 2017 revenue versus Google Play's $20.1B — and the publisher-cohort data shows that gap isn't just about top-grossing hits. The App Store turned 164 publishers into first-time millionaires in 2018 against Google Play's 88, even though Play's cohort grew faster at 24% YoY.
The metric has since become Sensor Tower's annual barometer of ecosystem health: its later projection counted 906 developers passing $1M across both stores in 2021, up from 475 in 2016 — making this 2018 snapshot an early reading of a cohort curve that keeps steepening.
First-order effects
- Apple enters 2019 with a structural pitch to developers — nearly double Google Play's rate of minting new million-dollar publishers — reinforcing iOS as the default first-launch platform for studios betting on paid monetization.
- Breakout publishers are immediately in play as acquisition targets: Small Giant Games' completed move to Zynga shows the exit path for exactly the cohort this data tracks.
Second-order effects
- Google faces pressure to close the monetization gap on Play, where games make up 84% of store revenue versus 68% on iOS — meaning Play's cohort depends even more heavily on hit-driven game spending like the $61.7B players spent on mobile games in 2019.
- Publishers and acquirers such as Zynga get a data-backed map of which small studios are scaling, sharpening competition for deals before valuations reflect the next year's cohort growth.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, app-store competition shifts from headline revenue totals to mid-tier developer economics — the number of businesses a platform can carry past $1M becomes the measure investors and regulators use to judge whether either store is a monopoly gatekeeper or a growth engine.
- A durable two-tier structure emerges: iOS as the premium monetization venue and Play as the volume channel, with cross-platform studios sequencing launches around where their first million is easiest to earn.
The trend: Mobile platforms are increasingly judged by how many mid-tier developers they scale into million-dollar businesses, with iOS holding a structural lead that Google Play's faster cohort growth only narrows slowly.