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

blackcrayon said:
I wonder if Apple could "celebrate" by dropping their cut of app sales to 25% (and thus the rest of the industry, who would immediately copy Apple on this).
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Why exactly would Apple do that?

And the last gift cards that I bought, I paid £30 for a £40 gift card. So if I bought apps for £40, the store that sold the card got £30 off me. Apple will have received got less than that, but paid 70% = £28 to the developers, so there isn't really much money left to run the store. Apple also carries the cost of pushing out all the free apps.

And what makes you think the industry would copy Apple? As far as I know, Amazon for example has very tough rules for its store and doesn't pay anything near that.

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mikeheenan said:
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.
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?????? They demonstrate to developers that it is profitable to write apps that are sold on the App Store. How you perceive that as "arrogant" is completely beyond me, unless you are running a competing store that doesn't pay anywhere near that and therefore you don't dare telling your own numbers. (Haven't heard Google ever mentioning how much they pay out, can't be much obviously).
 
Winni said:
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.
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I agree, Apple cannot sustain the sales and profit levels that they are at long term, Apple was always a premium product however, we are seeing Apple enter the lower tiered priced market and we would never of seen that in the past.

The iPad Mini was being discounted to $275 and the new iPod Touch 16gb was down to $200 over the Christmas holidays. Long term, products priced at these levels are too long for a company like Apple.
 
Winni said:
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.
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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.
 
roadbloc said:
+1. It would be very interesting to know this as I regard in-app purchases/freemium stuff as the cancer of the software world.
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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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MacsRgr8 said:
Is this Mac App Store + iTunes App Store?
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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.
 
gnasher729 said:
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.
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My initial thought was this is "iOS-only", but why not count the Mac App Store too?
Taking a look at the prices of the "pro-apps" (FCP, Logic, Aperture, etc.) but also apps from OMNI etc. these surely add up!
In any case, I'm pretty interested to see how the Mac App Store is doing.
 
And this is exactly why iOS will continue to dominate. Developers capable of making a great app will always choose iOS first.
 
goodcow said:
Why would they give up $50 million for a single month?
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But why would they do anything? I didn't say they had to do it :) Hell why not increase it to 33% to make a little more money?
It's a number that could be changed considering the amount of money they make in the App store. They've changed the prices of lots of things, sometimes lowering their profit for PR reasons, or customer goodwill, or whatever. They give iWork away for free now, etc etc.
 
Gasu E. said:
Is it just me, or does 10% of annual sales happening in December seem kind of low for a retail outlet?
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Very few apps from the app store are Christmas presents. If you subtract anything bought as a present from all sales over the year, the Christmas season will probably not have that much more sales than other parts of the year. Except for food and Christmas cards.
 
Traverse said:
However, I wonder how much of this went to the few big name developers.
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IIRC, over half of app revenues go to the top 20 or so developers, all of which (except for Pandora) are game makers.

This is partly why almost all of the "average revenue per developer" calculations are way off. First you have to subtract off the half of all income that a handful of developers take. THEN divide up the rest. Even then, an average doesn't tell the story.

Also, like others have posted, I wonder how much came from useless in all purchases for mindless games...
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In-app purchases generated 92% of revenue - Forbes

Surveys show that about 35% of iOS developers choose IAP as a revenue model. (Compared to about 20% of Android developers.)
 
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And hopefully we will soon see how much profit this over 10 Billion in app sales generated.
 
Traverse said:
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.
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YES! I would rather pay straight up for an app or extra functions, but there is an epidemic of apps where you need to pay 99cents for their currency or powerups
 
I'd be really interested to know Googles numbers by comparison. I know Google shift more individual downloads on Android, but the actual revenue must be much lower?

EDIT: Google is my friend
 
Ted13 said:
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.
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Sustaining the company is one thing, but trying to stay where they are right now is going to be very difficult long term. The company sales are bloated, there are a lot non-Apple faithful who are using cheaper Apple products such as the iPad mini, cheaper iPods, and even iPhone which is subsidized by the phone companies.

Apple grew big time with the iPhone and then more importantly the iPad, there were so many new Apple buyers that would never of ever bought a higher end Mac, laptop or desktop. These buyers can leave overnight if Apple is not careful.

Apples do eventually fall off the tree if you haven't already picked them. Apple can fall apart.
 
pagemaster said:
Sustaining the company is one thing, but trying to stay where they are right now is going to be very difficult long term. The company sales are bloated, there are a lot non-Apple faithful who are using cheaper Apple products such as the iPad mini, cheaper iPods, and even iPhone which is subsidized by the phone companies.

Apple grew big time with the iPhone and then more importantly the iPad, there were so many new Apple buyers that would never of ever bought a higher end Mac, laptop or desktop. These buyers can leave overnight if Apple is not careful.

Apples do eventually fall off the tree if you haven't already picked them. Apple can fall apart.
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Given mismanagement, bad product implementation and technology stagnation any company can fall..Be it apple, google, Samsung or Microsoft ! Lets wait and see what apple does with its anticipated new "products" that are going to be launched this year..Those would be a test of whether apple "still" has the ability to feel the pulse of the market !
 
Winni said:
Only a few years ago, it was unthinkable that Blackberry and Nokia would become endangered species...
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Only for those shortsighted enough to not see that the only reason Blackberry was successful was because they had push email. Those of us who knew that push email would be readily available on multiple platforms someday, and that Blackberry was horrible at everything else on mobile (i.e. user interface) knew their time would end. As for Nokia, they have sucked since the 90s, when every pimple faced moron in a cell phone store was pushing them on users (evidently because it was more profitable for the carrier) over better options. When real smartphones showed up, that actually worked the kludge that was Nokia was doomed.

Winni said:
There also was a time when the entire IT industry was afraid of IBM.
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True innovators have never been afraid of IBM.
 
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