In a Question-Answer session at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook made it public that Apple has paid out $8 billion till date to developers. This number displays an increase of $1 Billion since the last time the numbers were revealed in January – quite a clear and remarkable increase in developer payouts. As of October 2012, the amount paid to app developers was only $6.5 billion, which indicates that the holiday season brought in a large amount of money for developers.
Millions of people, with newly purchased devices have hit the App store to download apps. With 40 billion apps already been downloaded, the App Store is being seen as a proof that iOS is perhaps the market for app developers.
Apple derives its revenue from the app store by taking 30% of the selling price of an app, and through ‘In-app purchases’. When 80 percent of the time spent on smart phones, is spent on apps, to say that the smart phone world is not app-driven is an invalid statement. And this means that developers will be invited by all the manufacturers and OS vendors to make sure that the codes will be used at their platform.
What’s in there for Developers?
While looking at what platform to code for, one of the main considerations for developers is money. And with Apple’s announcement of a strong revenue stream, a lot more people will be looking into app development for Apple.
Apple has a huge advantage over its rivals in terms of the number of apps available in its online stores. The figure is close to 775,000. There are a large number of applications that are designed only for the iPad and iPhone, making a strong app ecosystem.
The numbers are especially significant as they represent paid downloads of apps, and not free ones, demonstrating that iOS are willing to spend money in the direction of developers, and apps that they deem to be worth buying. The numbers may have given the developers a further temptation to continue their work, and challenged other leading platforms to prove to the developers that they can be equally successful on platforms other than the iOS.
It effectively means that you have the best probability to get noticed when you put up your app in the app store. The CEO also said that Apple Stores receive approximately 10 million people every week at 400 different locations. Many stores are not large enough for such kind of traffic, and are going to be remodeled. There are also plans of new stores to come up.
By highlighting the economic impact of its iOS platform, Apple has clearly drawn many more developers, and set a benchmark for all its rivals. One thing is for certain – the App store seems to have created an entirely new industry: iOS app design and development.