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App Store Sales Top $10 Billion in 2013, Over $1 Billion in December

Tuesday January 7, 2014 4:50 am PST by Richard Padilla
app_store_icon_ios_7Apple announced today that App Store sales topped $10 billion in 2013, including a record breaking $1 billion in December alone, where App Store customers downloaded almost three billion apps. Overall, Apple has paid out over $15 billion to App Store developers.
“We’d like to thank our customers for making 2013 the best year ever for the App Store,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “The lineup of apps for the holiday season was astonishing and we look forward to seeing what developers create in 2014.”
In its press release, Apple also highlighted a number of popular and emerging apps and developers while drawing special attention to a few larger developers that particularly embraced the new look and features of iOS 7, which was released in September.

Apple announced a year ago that the App Store had passed 40 billion downloads, with half of those coming in 2012. The company also announced that December 2012 brought over two billion downloads, with 500 million user accounts registered.

In May 2013, Apple hit 50 billion worldwide app downloads, which it celebrated with a promotion for a $10,000 gift card for the person who downloaded the 50 billionth app. The App Store also reached one million live apps in December.

[ 44 comments ]


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Winni
73 months ago

So is apple still doomed? :rolleyes:


They're about as doomed as Microsoft or Samsung... But as we could observe more than once in the last few decades, markets, trends and hypes can change quickly and the larger a company gets, the slower it can adept and change. When the next big thing (TM) comes, Apple should better have -THE- product for that market. Only a few years ago, it was unthinkable that Blackberry and Nokia would become endangered species. There also was a time when the entire IT industry was afraid of IBM. Empires and success stories don't last forever.
Rating: 11 Votes
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ZacNicholson
73 months ago
So is apple still doomed? :rolleyes:
Rating: 5 Votes
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2457282
73 months ago
I contributed a large chunk to this effort in December. Apple now owns my house and kids -- I still have the wife, but not sure for how long. :p:D;)
Rating: 5 Votes
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DavidMonteiro
73 months ago

I wonder how much of that revenue were from in-app purchases?


Probably from impatient Candy Crush players...

(Just something I noticed... That App Store icon is not even the actual icon...)
Rating: 3 Votes
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Ted13
73 months ago

When the next big thing (TM) comes, Apple should better have -THE- product for that market. Only a few years ago, it was unthinkable that Blackberry and Nokia would become endangered species.

Define "a few years ago". IIRC John Gruber wrote a RIM (Blackberry) is doomed article in 2008. By the time the iPhone 3G came out, it was pretty obvious that Nokia and RIM were done for. True, very few mainstream "experts" would acknowledge it, but anyone paying attention got it (like Google, who did an immediate 180 degree turn on Android from Blackberry/WinMo clone to iPhone clone.)

As for Apple needing to have "-THE- product for that market" or else they are doomed™, no, because unlike say RIM who had a single business, telephones, Apple has any number of different businesses that can alone sustain the company - Mac, iPhone, iPad, iTunes (media sales/rentals), Stores (which on their own make far more money than Amazon) - heck, even it's AppleTV hobby is something most companies can only dream about.
Rating: 3 Votes
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Traverse
73 months ago
That's just pocket change!:rolleyes:

But seriously, I'm glad for this because I hope it motivates developers to continue to make quality apps. However, I wonder how much of this went to the few big name developers. Also, like others have posted, I wonder how much came from useless in all purchases for mindless games...

I'll pay for a quality app and buy in app purchases to extend functionality, but I will not pay $99.99 for "1,000,000,000,000" coins to buy a weapon or new car.
Rating: 2 Votes
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HMI
73 months ago
That's a whole lotta pesos!
Rating: 1 Votes
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goodcow
73 months ago

Why is it when these figures are announced Apple always says they "pay out" x amount to developers? To me the verbiage comes off a bit arrogant but at the same time I'm guessing it's so that Apple doesn't want people to claim they take the whole cut.


They want to show developers how much money the market is worth, and what they're potentially missing out on if not already part of the ecosystem.
Rating: 1 Votes
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johncrab
73 months ago
Developers, developers, developers, developers.....
Rating: 1 Votes
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gnasher729
73 months ago

+1. It would be very interesting to know this as I regard in-app purchases/freemium stuff as the cancer of the software world.


That really depends. There are obviously ridiculous in-app purchases that are designed to rip off kids and weak-willed (idiotic) adults. But if you live in Britain, that's nothing compared to so-called "pay-day loan" companies, where I would sincerely vote that anyone involved in these companies should be hanged because these companies prey on people who don't have money instead of people who have too much.

On the other hand, you can play 35 levels of Candy Crush for free, and 15 more levels cost £0.69, and I really can't find anything wrong with it. Or I got a basic SatNav program with all the UK maps built in for free, and I'm expected to pay £1.99 if I want French maps, or German maps, and so on. That's fine with me. As long as they don't claim that an app is free and what you get is just a lame demo, that's fine with me. The two examples that I gave do actually give you value for nothing, and expect you to pay more if you want more value, and that's fine with me.

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Is this Mac App Store + iTunes App Store?

Sounds like apps for iOS 7 (whatever that store is called). I'd be very surprised if app store sales for MacOS X apps were anywhere near, because (1) there are a lot fewer Macs, and (2) there are a lot of other places where you can buy apps, and many top sellers are not even available on the app store.
Rating: 1 Votes

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