Jan 1 busiest yet for App Store

Apple has announced that the App Store saw its busiest single day ever on New Year’s Day, capping a record-breaking holiday season and year. 

In 2016, developers earned over $20 billion, up over 40 per cent from 2015. Since the App Store launched in 2008, developers have earned over $60 billion across iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Mac. Those efforts helped kick off 2017 with a remarkable start, making New Year’s Day the highest single day ever for the App Store, with nearly $240 million in purchases.

“2016 was a record-shattering year for the App Store, generating $20 billion for developers, and 2017 is off to a great start with Jan. 1 as the single biggest day ever on the App Store,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “We want to thank our entire developer community for the many innovative apps they have created — which together with our products — help to truly enrich people’s lives.”

Customers broke records this holiday season with purchases from the App Store topping $3 billion in December. In the same month, Nintendo’s Super Mario Run recorded more than 40 million downloads in just four days after its release, and was the most downloaded app globally on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.

Super Mario Run is also among last year’s top 10 most downloaded apps worldwide, with Pokémon Go taking the top spot. Pokémon Go from Niantic quickly became a cultural phenomenon in mid-2016. Prisma, Reigns, Procreate, Lumino City, Sweat With Kayla and djay Pro, from some of Apple’s independent developers, were among the most successful apps for iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Apple Watch and Mac, respectively. The App Store offers 2.2 million apps in total, up over 20 per cent from last year.

With the App Store available in 155 countries, the App Store’s top-grossing markets include the US, China, Japan and the UK, with China experiencing record year-over-year growth at 90 per cent. The global impact of the App Store was captured this past year with two campaigns — Apps for Earth and Games for (RED). In partnership with the World Wildlife Fund and  the (RED) campaign around AIDS. The custom content created by each campaign’s participating developers helped raise over $17 million in total for the two organisations.

With the introduction of iMessage apps and SiriKit in iOS 10, developers created new types of app experiences. and iPhone and iPad customers now have access to over 21,000 iMessage apps to book rides, make payments, and return a call, among other.

Customers can subscribe to services from over 20,000 apps, with Netflix, HBO Now, Line, Tinder and MLB.com At Bat among last year’s most popular. iPhone and iPad customers grew the App Store’s subscription billings significantly in 2016, to $2.7 billion, up 74 per cent from 2015.