Apple’s latest salvo in the arguments (and, indeed, lawsuits and regulatory investigations) about its App Store is some new stats from last year. The company says that its App Store ecosystem “facilitated $643 billion in billings and sales during 2020, a 24 percent year-over-year increase”. So, this is not just purchases of apps and in-app purchases, but also the money generated by apps selling other kinds of product and services, from groceries to taxis.
Apple’s report claims that 90% of total billings and sales “occurred outside of the App Store”, while also noting that ‘small’ firms (defined as those with fewer than 1m downloads and less than $1m of annual revenues) are 90% of its App Store developers.
The regulatory headaches continue however: the same day the report was published, the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) lobby group joined the EC’s music-streaming antitrust case against Apple as an ‘interested third party’, saying it wants to “ensure that Europe’s consumers have access to a full range of music streaming services without their choices being unfairly restricted or prices being artificially inflated”.
Image by Laurenz Heymann/Unsplash
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