Apple generates $64 bn revenue from App Store in 2020

Washington: American multinational technology company Apple made a total of USD 64 billion in revenue through its App Store in 2020, showing 28 per cent increase from an estimated USD 50 billion that the tech giant generated in 2019.

According to The Verge, this growth in 2020 represents a good amount of growth for the company's App Store because the estimated increase between 2018 and 2019 was only 3.1 per cent. Though it is difficult to determine the exact reason for this spike in growth, a sharp increase in growth can be attributed to the fact that people did purchase more games online owing to the worldwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

When Apple reports on its revenues, it lumps the money it makes from the App Store along with its services revenue, which turns out to be by far its fastest-growing category.

The company takes a 30 per cent cut of most of the money coming into the App Store, which, while there are caveats and exceptions, represents billions of dollars of revenue. As per The Verge, Apple typically guards its take carefully, despite recent pushback from developers like Hey.com and even legal challenges from Epic.

Every year, Apple reports how much money it has paid out to developers since 2008. CNBC used that to calculate the App Store revenue number by subtracting last year's number from this year's, then it accounts for Apple's 30 per cent cut.