Apple has announced that the App Store made the most money it’s ever made in a single day on New Year’s Day, shattering previous records by generating $240 million in sales.
App developers also earned a combined $20 billion in 2016 – that’s up 40 percent on 2015, really putting in perspective the growing impact the App Store has on the lives of iPhone and iPad owners.
Apple has described 2016 as a year of “unprecedented developer earnings and breakout app hits.” Of course, 2016 was the year we were introduced to the likes of Pokémon Go, and Nintendo began releasing games on iOS. In fact, on New Year’s Day Super Mario Run was the #1 most downloaded app globally (though figures suggest only 3 percent of the 40 million downloaders went on to pay the $9.99 IAP for the full game, numbers that Apple has contested.)
Apple also highlights the apps Prisma, Reigns, Procreate, Lumino City, Sweat With Kayla and djay Pro as important independent titles that made it big in the App Store.
“2016 was a record-shattering year for the App Store, generating $20 billion for developers, and 2017 is off to a great start with January 1 as the single biggest day ever on the App Store,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “We want to thank our entire developer community for the many innovative apps they have created — which together with our products — help to truly enrich people’s lives.”
The App Store currently contains 2.2 million apps, an increase of 20 percent on last year.
Developers also helped to raise over $17 million to help fight AIDS as part of the App Store’s recent (RED) campaign which saw a range of games introduce custom content.
Apple also revealed that the recently launched iMessage App Store now has 21,000 apps and sticker packs.