Mobile apps have become a very big business indeed. Apple on Tuesday reported that its App Store generated a record $10 billion in sales in 2013, which included around 3 billion downloads and $1 billion in sales for the month of December alone. Apple credited some of the December surge in sales to the fall launch of iOS 7, which the company said let developers “create stunning apps that took advantage of the redesigned user interface and the more than 200 new features and APIs.” In all, Apple says that developers have no made a total of $15 billion from the App Store. The company’s press release follows below.
App Store Sales Top $10 Billion in 2013
Record-Breaking December with Over $1 Billion in Sales
January 07, 2014 08:30 AM Eastern Standard Time
CUPERTINO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Apple® today announced that customers spent over $10 billion on the App Store℠ in 2013, including over $1 billion in December alone. App Store customers downloaded almost three billion apps in December making it the most successful month in App Store history. Apple’s incredible developers have now earned $15 billion on the App Store.
“We’d like to thank our customers for making 2013 the best year ever for the App Store,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “The lineup of apps for the holiday season was astonishing and we look forward to seeing what developers create in 2014.”
With the introduction of iOS 7, developers were able to create stunning apps that took advantage of the redesigned user interface and the more than 200 new features and APIs. Developers such as Evernote, Yahoo!, AirBnB, OpenTable, Tumblr, Pinterest and American Airlines re-imagined the user experience, bringing content to the forefront while increasing the overall efficiency and performance of their apps.
2013 saw surprise hits like Ellen DeGeneres’ Heads Up, ProtoGeo’s Moves, Simon Filip’s Afterlight and Kevin Ng’s Impossible Road. Many of the year’s biggest successes like Candy Crush Saga, Puzzles & Dragons, Minecraft, QuizUp and Clumsy Ninja were created by international developers, while Duolingo (United States), Simogo (Sweden), Frogmind (UK), Plain Vanilla Corp (Iceland), Atypical Games (Romania), Lemonista (China), BASE (Japan) and Savage Interactive (Australia) emerged as developers to watch in 2014.
The revolutionary App Store offers more than one million apps to iPhone®, iPad® and iPod touch® users in 155 countries around the world, with more than 500,000 native iPad apps available. App Store customers can choose from an incredible range of apps in 24 categories, including newspapers and magazines offered in Newsstand, games, business, news, sports, health & fitness, travel and kids.
Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.
