The App Store has made Apple at least $40 billion in revenue since it was created 10 years ago today
When Steve Jobs unveiled the developer kit that would make way for the App Store we know today, he had no idea how big it would one day be. "We're excited about creating a vibrant third-party developer community with potentially thousands of native applications for iPhone and iPod touch," Jobs said back in 2008.
A decade after it launched, the App Store holds more than two billion apps and is responsible for making the Services category - which also includes Apple Music, iTunes, and Apple Pay - the second largest contributor to Apple's revenue, second only to iPhones. As this chart from Statista shows, these combined services have doubled their revenue since 2015, accumulating $1.3 trillion over the course of five and a half years.
Apple doesn't share a specific breakdown of the individual services, but it's possible to decipher figures for the App Store based on what we known. For example, Apple has paid developers more than $100 billion since the App Store's inception. Assuming Apple traditionally breaks out the incurred amount by giving 70% to developers and keeping 30%, the total amount incurred from the App Store would be at least $143 billion.
If that's so, Apple has made a minimum of $43 billion off of the App Store over the course of its 10-year life.
