Nearly 10,000 iOS Apps on App Store Generated Over $1 Million Since July 2010: App Annie

The App Store will be 10-years-old on July 10, and app analytics firm App Annie has released a report to reveal the performance of the store in the last decade. The company highlights that since July 2010, the App Store has included nearly 10,000 apps that have individually generated over $1 million (approximately Rs. 6.7 crores) in consumer spending. It is also considered that a significant growth is yet to come, and the App Store will continue to provide not just the bread and butter but also some new opportunities to developers all around the globe.

Between July 2010 and December 2017, App Annie reports that over 170 billion iOS apps were downloaded from the App Store. This has helped developers earn a total consumer spend of over $130 billion (approximately Rs. 8,70,000 crores). While nearly 10,000 apps are found to have generated over $1 million in consumer spending since 2010, as many as 2,293 are in the range of $1 million to $10 million (approximately Rs. 67 crores) during 2017 alone and 564 are making even over $10 million each. The App Annie team also underlines that despite a lower device install base, the iOS App Store generates almost twice as much consumer spend as Google Play.

A large number of iPhone users in markets including Brazil, China, and India have installed over 100 apps installed and use 40 or more apps each month, as per the App Annie report. It has also been reported that users in France, Indonesia, and South Korea even have more than 110 apps on an average. Further, the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is found to be accounted for nearly 60 percent of the total iOS App Store consumer spend. APAC's growth notably increased in the global share of downloads and consumer spending after the launch of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus in China that took place in October 2014.

Having said that, the US continues to be the top region when it comes to downloads with 40.1 billion app downloads and consumer spending with $36 billion (approximately Rs. 2.40,000 crores) of revenue so far. China comes as second with 39.9 billion downloads and $27.7 billion (approximately Rs. 1,80,000 crores) in revenue.

Games are undoubtedly contributing to a major extent in the entire App Store spending growth. App Annie notes that while games accounted for only 31 percent of total downloads in 2017, they represented as much as 75 percent of consumer spending.

So far, more than 4.5 million apps have been released on the iOS App Store, and apps outside of the games category have been accounted for an increasing proportion of releases. Apple in September 2016 enhanced its QA process that resulted in fewer but higher quality apps being released and retained on the App Store, as noted by the firm. App Annie also notes that in-app subscriptions have largely helped iOS apps mark growth on the App Store. Audio apps such as Pandora Radio and Spotify led the revenue charts for years. However, video apps including Netflix, Tencent Video, and iQiyi were among the top five apps with in-app subscriptions option in 2017. Tinder also not surprisingly joined the top five list.

In 2022, App Annie estimates that the worldwide consumer spends in the iOS App Store will hit the mark of $75.7 billion (approximately Rs. 5.7 lakh crores), up 80 percent from 2017 - marking a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.2 percent.