The company's journey to the summit of the technology industry has been a rocky one, having seen Jobs (pictured right in 1976) leave the firm in the mid-1980s after his pet project, the first Macintosh computer, struggled and he attempted to oust then chief executive John Sculley. In 2020, many brick-and-mortar businesses have turned to mobile commerce, including some that may otherwise have been forced to close due to the coronavirus, Apple said.įood and grocery delivery apps have benefited from increased consumer demand, while apps related to businesses that have faced restrictions, or those that require in-person interactions, have dropped in popularity. The App Store, which launched in 2008, is home to almost two million apps and visited by half a billion people each week across 175 countries, Apple said.
Non-game apps that generate substantial in-app advertising sales are often free to download and use, such as Twitter and Pinterest, though others also offer in-app purchases to access content, such as The New York Times and MLB.com.ĭ irect payments made to developers from Apple are only a fraction of the vast total when sales from other sources, such as physical goods and services, are calculated.īecause Apple only receives a commission from the billings associated with digital goods and services, more than 85 percent of the $519 billion total accrues solely to third-party developers and businesses of all sizes. Meanwhile, in-app advertising sales accounted for $45 billion, and of that, 44 percent was derived from games. Ride-hailing apps, including Uber (pictured) and Lyft, comprised $40 billion in sales, and food delivery apps, including DoorDash and Grubhub, made up $31 billion Notable games of 2019 included 'Mario Kart Tour,' which was the most downloaded game of 2019, and 'Sky: Children of the Light' from indie developer thatgamecompany, which won Apple's 2019 iPhone Game of the Year.
Games, the type of app most downloaded in 2019, was the largest generator of billings and sales within this category.
Travel apps, including Expedia and United, accounted for $57 billion, while ride-hailing apps, including Uber and Lyft, comprised $40 billion in sales, and food delivery apps, including DoorDash and Grubhub, made up $31 billion.īillings and sales from digital goods and services comprised $61 billion, and this category included apps for music and video streaming, fitness, education, ebooks and audiobooks, news and magazines, dating services and more.
Other types of m-commerce apps were among the largest sources of sales from physical goods and services. Retail apps include those that digitally represent brick-and-mortar stores such as Target and Best Buy, as well as virtual marketplaces that sell physical goods, such as Etsy, but do not include grocery delivery, which is its own category. Within that category, mobile commerce (m-commerce) apps generated the vast majority of sales, and of those, retail was the largest, at $268 billion. Of the $519 billion the App Store ecosystem supported in 2019, sales from physical goods and services accounted for the largest share, at $413 billion.
The study looked at 2019 data to capture an accurate snapshot of the full App Store ecosystem, taking into account all sources of commerce. The highest value categories for Apple were mobile commerce (m-commerce) apps, digital goods and services apps, and in-app advertising