Tim Cook announced on Twitter Wednesday that July was a record month for the App Store, and that Apple has now paid more than $50 billion to developers. Both represent massive accomplishments, and the $50 billion paid out to developers would make the reputation of any other company for decades to come.
The two tweets:
July was a record-breaker for the @AppStore! Highest-ever monthly billings and money paid to developers.
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) August 3, 2016
.@AppStore developers have now earned over $50 billion! Congratulations on your success and such inspired creativity.
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) August 3, 2016
Apple doesn’t often announce milestones via Twitter, but Tim Cook has been working overtime recently to push the successes of the company. Services, which are more than a $20 billion a year category now, is one of the things Mr. Cook emphasized during July’s quarterly conference call with analysts.
That makes these tweets aimed at Apple fans, developers, and investors, too. Apple fans want to see the company succeeding, developers want to know they’re making apps for the right platform, and Mr. Cook wants investors to know he’s serious about the importance of services.
I should also mention that I like seeing this sort of engagement from Apple execs. It’s all part of the substantially more open Apple under Tim Cook and Steve Dowling, Vice President of Communications.
Whoops an extra incorrect sentence crept into my comment above.
>”Apple only pays out $10b per year.”
That of course is incorrect – as per this article, Apple just paid out over $10 billion to developers in just the last 6 months and then all the other revenue sources boost that figure to 420B per year.
It’s even better than that for Developers as they make even more from sources other than the App Store.
Vision Mobiles’s Q2 2015 Developer Economic report gives some insight into this:
– 8% of iOS developers (17,000 devs) generate greater than $2.4 Million annually
– 7% or 15,000 iOS devs make between $600K and $2.4 Million p.a.
– 24% or 50,000 iOS devs make between $60K and $600K p.a.
If you added up the above lowest numbers 17k x $2.4m + 15k x $600k + 50k x $60k, that comes to $52b. Apple only pays out $10b per year.
Vision Mobile’s figures include ALL developer revenues, not just App Store and In-App purchases. Including all those revenue sources, Vision Mobile estimates that Developers earned $420 Billion dollars generated by the App Economy in 2015. Here is the breakdown of those figures again:
– Mobile e-commerce for 2015 = $300 Billion
– App Store sales = $40.5 Billion
– Mobile Advertising revenue for developers = $34 Billion
– Mobile Developer Contract fees = $18.5 Billion
– App Subscriptions at $9 Billion
– other dev revenue at $18 Billion
TOTAL = $420 Billion dollars generated by the App Economy in 2015.
However, it is not nearly so rosy for Android developers as Vision Mobile reports:
“It turns out that Android is not even the second best platform for revenues. Of those prioritising the mobile browser, 47% are below the app poverty line, making less than $500 and 29% make more than $5,000 per month”
“Android developers look poor in comparison with 55% earning less than $500 per month from the platform and just 19% earning more than $5,000 per month. In fact, the revenue distribution for Android-first developers doesn’t look much better than that for those targeting BlackBerry 10 or Windows Phone either. Since the user base for Android is more than an order of magnitude bigger, this is astonishing.”
“Speculation that Android’s overwhelming market share would eventually tempt top iOS developers to switch their priorities seem to have been unfounded. If anything, the reverse is likely to happen as the app economy continues to mature.”
Wow. That’s a lot of development dollars.