iOS developers earned more than 30% over 2016

Jan 5, 2018 14:33 GMT  ·  By

Apple has published details on the App Store purchases made by iOS (iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch) users over the holiday season, which the company says it was a record-breaking one.

According to Apple, iOS customers spent more than $300 million in apps and games purchases from the App Store on their iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices only on New Year's Day, January 1, 2018, and that they spent over $890 million in App Store purchases during the last week of December 2017 starting Christmas Eve.

"We are thrilled with the reaction to the new App Store and to see so many customers discovering and enjoying new apps and games," said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "We want to thank all of the creative app developers who have made these great apps and helped to change people’s lives."

Pokémon GO appears to have been one of the best selling games on the App Store during the holiday season, as Apple said it's now back to the top of the App Store charts as of December 21, and that's mostly because of Apple’s ARKit framework and the new augmented reality features introduced in the game for a more realistic gameplay.

iOS developers earned $26.5 billion in 2017

On the other hand, Apple said that iOS developers earned $26.5 billion only in 2017, which means more than a 30 percent increase over the previous year. Since the initial launch of the iOS App Store in July 2008, iOS developers have earned over $86 billion from apps and games distributed across all supported devices.

With the introduction of the major iOS 11 software update for supported iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch devices in September 2017, Apple redesigned the App Store to make discovery of new and existing apps and games more fun and easy for their over half a billion customers that visit the App Store on a weekly basis.