Apple’s App Store drives a hunk of global GDP, report claims
Apple is out with a new report which suggests the App Store enabled around 1 percent of global trade, making the claim that it helped drive an astonishing $1.3 trillion in billings and sales in 2024.
The company helpfully points out that the vast majority (90%) of billings and sales facilitated on the App Store ecosystem was tax free.
While Apple isn’t saying so directly, what it is saying is to remind us of the good its app store and services do, powering up the digital transformation of it all. And a silent plea to let the business thrive.
What Apple said
“It’s incredible to see so many developers design great apps, build successful businesses, and reach Apple users around the world,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “This report is a testament to the many ways developers are enriching people’s lives with app and game experiences, while creating opportunity and driving new innovations. We’re proud to support their success.”
What is this report?
Apple is propagating a new study by economists Professor Andrey Fradkin from Boston University Questrom School of Business and Dr. Jessica Burley from Analysis Group. It raises some interesting statistics
- The study found that in 2024, developer billings and sales for digital goods and services totalled $131 billion, driven by games, photo and video editing apps, and enterprise tools.
- Sales of physical goods and services exceeded $1 trillion, fueled by rising demand for online food delivery and pickup, as well as grocery orders.
- In-app advertising revenue from ads placed by developers in their apps was $150 billion.
- Spending across all the above categories has more than doubled since 2019.
It is interesting to reflect on the extent to which the Covid disaster people now seem to want to pretend never happened actually drove adoption of digitally driven services such as food delivery. To some extent Apple, and every developer, has benefitted from this increased acceptance of digital services. But the report doesn’t take note of that. It does say that over the last five years, App Store ecosystem supported billings and sales more than doubled in the US, China, and Europe.
What about the global trends?
There are some fascinating informational points concerning Apple’s global App Store business buried in the report, for example that the store attracts over 813 million visitors each week worldwide.
Additional stats:
- Digital payment spending grew over seven-fold in the U.S. since 2019 as mobile payments have become commonplace.
- Food delivery and pickup spending more than tripled in Europe.
- The UK has the largest ecommerce sector in Europe.
Apple clearly intends to defend its App Store business model with this report, which is why it makes such extensive mention of the many ways it already supports developers. It is however interesting to consider how if the company enables so much trade, perhaps it can find some way to shift the business model on the back of its own payment systems?
Though the fear has to be that with regulators seeming to be on some evangelical journey to chip away at the company, even shifting business models would probably still attract their wrath.
All the same, it must be on the company’s mind to find some way to take a cut out of the business ecosystem it has made. If regulator’s won’t let it take a commission on App Store sales, as it has been doing, then it will have to find its piece of action somewhere else.
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