As App Store legislation targeting tech giants Apple and Google moves forward in Congress, Apple today released two more new reports aimed at showing how well the app economy has worked under its rule. The company has commissioned third-party companies to prepare an analysis regarding job growth and earnings in the iOS developer community. Studies have found that the iOS app economy now supports more than 2.2 million jobs in the United States, and indicated an 118% increase in earnings for small developers in the United States over the past two years.
Apple again hired Analysis Group for one report – the same company it used to produce reports to support its position on its commission structure or to highlight the growing volume of commerce taking place across apps. Last year, for example, that number grew another 24%, to $643 billion, while Apple indicated that about 90% of those billing and sales were commission-free.
The biggest point Apple tries to make with each new report is that Apple’s current system works just fine — and that’s fair; that their commissions are comparable to competing app stores and other software marketplaces; And that in the end, the work of the Apple App Store is good for the economy. But the basic tone is also a warning to potential regulators: Be careful what you mess with. Today’s reports are more than the same.
In research supported by Analysis Group, Apple participated in increasing revenue for small developers on the App Store in 2019 by 113% over the past two years, more than doubling the revenue growth of large developers. In the US, junior developers have seen an 118% increase in revenue since 2019. Apple said these junior developers are those who earn up to $1 million a year and have less than a million downloads a year.
Image credits: apple
It is interesting that Apple outperformed small developers in terms of revenue And the Downloads, because the App Store Small Business program, which launched on January 1, 2021, only uses the million-dollar threshold to cut commissions for small developers from 30% to 15%. No minimum number of downloads is used for this software. If Apple continues to chart this same growth metric over the coming years, it will not be possible to make a direct comparison between these numbers and its small business program.
The report also examined the number of new developers joining the App Store ecosystem in 2021, noting that nearly 24% came from Europe, 23% from China, 14% from the United States, 4.3% from Japan, and 34 % from other regions including Korea, India and Brazil. She added that the number of smaller developers over the past two years had also grown – in the UK by almost 40% since 2019, and in Germany by more than 25%.
While Apple believes this data can help demonstrate the success of its operation of the App Store, if anything, these numbers highlight how important the App Store is to a wide range of global developers. This in turn can also help explain why a system of this size and strength could be due to more regulation and competition.
This is going on now. With Congress paying its App Store bills in the US, a Big Tech fix affecting Apple is taking effect in the European Union via the Digital Markets Act (DMA), expected to be rolled out this spring. DMA will bring a series of pre-commitments on the so-called internet gatekeepers, which will likely apply to operators of big app stores. In the UK, a provisional report issued by the competition regulator last December indicated that both Apple and Google are likely to face interference in controlling their own app stores, once the government passes legislation to enable a planned pre-regulatory system for tech giants to tackle the well-established market. Energy. The European Union recently agreed to a pre-reboot to deal with big tech.
Apple recently specifically resisted a DMA requirement to give consumers the ability to install apps from outside the App Store, also known as sideloading. Apple has fiercely argued that allowing sideloading would make the iPhone less safe and secure for end users. In the US, Apple has been involved in a lawsuit with Fortnite game maker Epic Games over much of the same thing – the game maker wants to allow users to install its apps without paying Apple a commission, including by hosting them on its App Store and processing private payments. That case is under appeal.
Even today’s reports suggest that some big developers – perhaps Epic’s size, in fact – owe their mobile successes to the Apple App Store.
The research charts the growth of developers who earned more than $1 million in the App Store in 2021, and found that 45% of today’s top developers either weren’t in the App Store, or earned less than $10,000, five years ago.
Image credits: apple
While it’s always interesting to get access to new App Store data, the latest Apple research only shows the powerful force that the App Store has become over the years. It’s an ecosystem responsible for billions of dollars in commerce, fueling job growth and where Apple’s decisions on revenue sharing agreements and developer policies can affect companies that earn millions.
Apple concluded the reports by noting that the App Store itself has now grown to 1.8 million apps. She added that the store is visited by more than 600 million people a week, and Apple has more than 30 million registered developers.
The reports come ahead of Apple’s annual Developers Conference, WWDC, which runs June 6-10.
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