Apple App Store customers spent over $540m on apps on New Year's Day 2021

"[Apple] App Store customers [spent] $1.8 billion on digital goods and services over the week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, driven largely by spending on games. Customers ushered in 2021 by setting a new single-day spending record of over $540 million on New Year’s Day."

Source:  Press Release from Apple, 6th January 2021

515m people subscribe to Apple apps and services

"Sales of services such as streaming television content rose with billions of people locked in their homes, the company said. The segment, which includes iCloud storage as well as its streaming services for music and television shows, saw sales of $13.4bn, compared with analyst estimates of $12.9n, according to FactSet data. Cook said Apple had 515 million subscribers to apps and services, up by 125 million from one year earlier."
Source:  The Guardian, 30th April 2020
Note - I'm assuming that this is 'people' rather than devices

13m ARKit apps have been downloaded in 6 months

"iPhone and iPad users worldwide have installed more than 13 million augmented reality apps built expressly using Apple’s ARKit framework since they debuted on September 19 of last year, Sensor Tower Store Intelligence data shows.
As the following charts reveal, these downloads have been heavily concentrated around a few key App Store categories, including Games, Utilities, and Lifestyle. In addition to this, we’ve put together top 10 rankings of the most downloaded free and paid ARKit-only apps and games, along with the highest grossing offerings so far in this growing space."
Source:  SensorTower, 28th March 2018

Apple's app store shrank for the first time ever in 2017

"The Apple App Store endured its first ever contraction in 2017 — dropping from 2.2 million published iOS apps in the beginning of the year to 2.1 million by year-end.
The news comes from a new report from Appfigures, according to TechCrunch. The App Store’s contraction was paired with the Google Play stores’ expansion — in 2017, it reportedly grew 30 percent to around 3.6 million apps.
The drop off, according to Appfigures, comes as a result of a few issues. Apple has begun pushing for stricter enforcement of app guidelines — meaning more apps were categorized as spam and removed. There were also technical changes to the App Store that required developers to adopt 64-bit architecture.
The change also reflects a purge of apps that were considered abandoned, outdated, or those that were out of step with current app-development guidelines. That clean-up began in 2016, but analysts suspect that purge may well have continued into 2017.
Other explanations for the great app thin-out include a temporary move to template-based apps, but that policy was relaxed over SMB complaints that the requirement made the App Store inaccessible for smaller businesses."

Source:  PYMTS, 5th April 2018

Apple shipped an estimated 322m devices in 2017

"It's easy to think of Apple as just an iPhone maker. More than 210M iPhones are sold per year, and no other Apple product comes close to surpassing iPhone in terms of unit sales. However, iPhone is only one piece of Apple's hardware story.
According to my estimates, Apple sold 322M gadgets in FY2017. This total includes unit sales from every major product category and accessory powered by Apple software (iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches, AirPods, iPods, Apple Pencils, Beats headphones, and Apple TVs). After a down year in 2016, when Apple shipped 8% fewer devices than in 2015, the company returned to unit sales growth in 2017. In fact, Apple shipped 7% more devices in 2017 than in 2016."
Source:  Above Avalon, 20th December 2017

The most popular emoji on iPhones & other iOS devices

Source:  Apple's Differential Privacy Overview, November 2017

Apple paid more than £20bn to app developers in 2016

"Apple customers’ App Store spending jumped 40 per cent in 2016 — fuelled by games such as Pokémon Go and Super Mario Run — to provide a much-needed boost to services revenues, at a time when iPhone growth remains sluggish.
Payments to app developers, after Apple took its cut, rose to more than $20bn last year, the company said on Thursday, with growth accelerating in China.
“2016 was a record-shattering year for the App Store,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice-president of worldwide marketing."
Source:  FT, 5th January 2016

Apple's Q1 2016 profit was the largest of any public company in history

"Apple just reported the largest quarterly profit of any public company in history, again.
With profits of $18.4 billion for its first fiscal quarter of 2016, Apple beat the record it set last year by $400 million.
Apple’s profits largely hinge on iPhone sales. The company sold 74.8 million iPhones during the quarter, fewer than analysts expected — predictions had ranged between 75.4 million and 77 million iPhones, depending on who you asked.
Apple missed analysts’ estimates on revenue this quarter, but exceeded expectations on earnings. The company reported $75.9 billion in revenue, on the lower end of its own estimated range of between $75.5 billion and $77.5 billion. On average, Analysts thought Apple would report $76.59 billion in revenue. Analysts also said Apple would report $3.23 in earnings per share for the quarter; it reported earnings of $3.28 per share."

Source:  Venturebeat, 26th January 2016
Plus - Best ever quarter in China

Apple shipped 48m iPhones and 10m iPads in its Q4 2015

Source:  Apple financial docs, published 27th October 2015
Units are in thousands, revenues in millions
Note that Apple's Q4 2015 ended 26th Sept 2015

Apple's app store revenues hit $5bn in Q2 2015

"Apple announced iPhone sales of 47 million for the fiscal third quarter, falling slightly short of analyst expectations of 48.8 million.
Still, this is up from the 35.2 million iPhones sold in the year-ago quarter, no doubt owing to the popularity of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
Cook also said during the earnings call that "Android switchers are at an all-time high", following reports that a third of iPhone buyers in Europe switched from Google's rival operating system.
Mac sales were also up, coming in at 4.7 million for the three-month period compared with 4.4 million in the year-ago quarter, and 4.5 million in Q2, adding weight to IDC's recent report placing Apple as the world's fourth largest PC maker.
Apple Macbook Pro with Retina display 2014
Apple's Q3 results don't paint such a pretty picture for the iPad, which sold 10.9 million units during the quarter, down from 13.27 million this time last year and 12.6 million in the previous quarter.
However, Cook seemed pretty pleased with the numbers, and lauded the fact that App Store revenues grew 24 percent during the three-month period to $5bn.
"We had an amazing quarter, with iPhone revenue up 59 percent over last year, strong sales of Mac, all-time record revenue from services, driven by the App Store, and a great start for Apple Watch," he said."

Source:  The Inquirer, 22nd July 2015

Note - They didn't reveal any figures for the Apple Watch - it's their 'other' category

The Play store gets more app downloads, the iOS app store gets more revenue

Source:  Data from App Annie, reported by Next Big What, 17th July 2015

Siri processes 1bn requests a week (& more Apple stats)

"The company reported that its App Store has crossed 100 billion app downloads, with $30 billion being paid out to developers so far.
In terms of adoption of its latest software, Apple claims 55% of all Mac users are running on OS X Yosemite while 83% users are running on iOS 8.
Apple made major announcements for its digital assistant Siri this year and claimed that it serves up 1 billion requests a week and is 40% faster and more accurate compared to last year.
Maps is the other Apple service that is getting great new upgrades with iOS 9, with the company claiming that Maps was used 3.5 times more than the next leading maps app with its service getting over 5 billion requests per week.
Apple Pay, the company’s relatively new mobile payments service is now supported by 2,500 banks with there being over 1 million locations where consumers can use the service.
iOS 9 isn’t as major an update as what we’ve seen in the past. Instead, the company is working on ways to make it faster and more powerful. Apple claims iOS 9 offers a 50% reduction in CPU usage while drawing while an iPhone 6 running on iOS 9 lasts for 1 hour extra in a typical usage scenario."

Source:  Stats from WWDC 2015, reported by Next Big What, 9th June 2015

Apple sold over 61m iPhones in Q1 2015

"Apple’s iPhone 6 and 6 Plus continue their hit parade, building on a massive first quarter of 2015 with a very strong second quarter total of 61.2 million handsets sold. This isn’t an all-time quarterly record, but it’s normal to see a slight decrease quarter-over-quarter coming out of a launch sales period, and this is a huge increase year-over-year compared to the 43.7 million iPhone sales sold during Q2 2014. This is the second highest total for quarterly iPhone sales from Apple of all time, besting the 51 million from Q1 2014 it beat with Q1 2015’s 74.5 million sales by a wide margin.
The iPhone may have seen big gains year-over-year, but in what’s becoming a common refrain, iPad sales continued to be less than impressive. The iPad saw only 12.6 million sales during Q2 2015, compared to 16 million in the year-ago quarter, and 21.4 million during Q1 2015. The iPad was expected to sell around 14 million units according to consensus analyst estimates, while the iPhone predictions pegged total sales at around 58 million units for the quarter, so Apple handily blew those away.
The Q2 2015 iPhone sales represent 40 percent growth year-over-year, while the iPad’s sales slid over 21 percent compared to the year-ago, three-month period."

Source:  Techcrunch, 27th April 2015

It took Apple 74 days to sell one million iPhones and 28 days to sell one million iPads

"To put [Apple Watch figures not yet revealed] in context: It took Apple 74 days to sell one million iPhones and 28 days to sell one million iPads. So even if sales are constrained by supply, it still likely represents a significant increase in momentum from previous new Apple products."
Source:  Mashable, 13th April 2015
Links -
74 days to sell 1m iPhones - 10th September 2007 (Press release also points out that it took nearly 2 years to sell 1m iPods)
(Note that the iPhone wasn't released in UK and other major markets until after this point)
28 days to sell 1m iPads - 3rd May 2010
Over 300,000 iPads sold in first day - 5th April 1010

Apple sold 74.5m iPhones - 34,000 a hour - during Q4 2014

"Apple Inc. surpassed even the most bullish Wall Street expectations for its holiday quarter with an improbable trifecta: selling more iPhones at higher prices—and earning more on each sale.
The Cupertino, Calif., company said it sold 74.5 million iPhones in the quarter, 46% above a year earlier, while lifting the average selling price of the devices by $50 from the prior year. The total equates to more than 34,000 phones an hour, around the clock.
“Demand for iPhone was staggering,” Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook told analysts. “This volume is hard to comprehend.”
Results were remarkable, even for a company that has increased revenue more than tenfold in the past decade. They recalled the Steve Jobs heyday when iPhone demand routinely topped forecasts. In some ways, the gains are more impressive because Apple today faces many more competitors and because smartphone growth is thought to be slowing.
Consumers snapped up Apple’s two new larger-display phones, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which made their debut in September, after years in which Apple ceded the large smartphone market to rivals. Apple encountered supply shortages for weeks in traditional strongholds like the U.S., as well as faster-growing markets like China."

Source:  WSJ 27th January 2015

Macs & iPads - 

"Mac sales were also at an all-time high at 5.52 million units, edging the company's previous-best in the preceding September quarter. The company's Mac hardware saw its numbers increase 14 percent year over year.

Record sales of both the iPhone and Mac helped push Apple to the strongest quarter in history.

iPad sales continued their decline, however, falling to 21.4 million units in the December frame. That was down 18 percent from the same period a year prior."

Source:  Apple Insider, 27th January 2015

1.6% of app developers make more revenue than the other 98.4% combined

"A study last month of more than 10,000 app makers by market analysts VisionMobile found that 1.6 per cent of developers make more than the other 98.4 per cent combined. While the research estimates there are almost 3m mobile developers in the world today, more than half make less than $500 per app per month.
“It seems extremely unlikely that the market can sustain anything like the current level of developers for many more years,” it concluded."

Source:  The FT, 19th August 2014, citing data from VisionMobile

From the VisionMobile report, August 2014

"The figures in our Q3 2014 State of the Developer Nation report are once again crystal clear: the vast majority of app developers struggle to make a living. 7 out of 10 don’t earn enough to sustain full-time development (we call them the Have Nothings and Poverty Stricken). That would be over 2 million people, roughly the population of Slovenia. Almost 90% of that record app store revenue will go to just 12% of developers.

While more app store revenues are clearly a good thing for developers, the money is peanuts compared to what Apple makes. In Mobile Megatrends 2014, we showed that Apple captures 80% of the total iOS “ecosystem GDP”, while developers capture less than 15% (including commissioned apps released without any revenue model).

The situation on Android is even worse. Whereas 50% of iOS developers live below the poverty line, the number for Android is 64%. Also for Android, hardware makers capture 80% of ecosystem GDP, while developers are scrambling over the left-overs. Other ecosystems like Windows Phone or Blackberry don’t have the scale to provide viable escape routes.

[...]

Ecosystems can sustain this situation as long as there is supply of developers hoping to get rich. Only 1.6% of developers have an app that earns >$500K per month, but those few big wins will make all the difference for the motivation of the Have Nothings, the Poverty Stricken and the Struggling to keep creating (source). Asking whether developer ecosystems are sustainable is like asking for how long casinos will exist given that most participants lose money. “Indefinitely” would be a safe bet."

Apple sold 35.2m iPhones and 13.3m iPads in Q3 2014

"Apple has released its financial results for Q3 2014 (the three-month period ended 28 June), with revenues of $37.4bn (£21.9bn), up 5.9 per cent year-on-year but falling short of analysts’ expectations of $38bn.
Net profits for the quarter stood at $7.7bn, up 11.6 per cent.
Apple sold 35.2m iPhones, up 13 per cent over last year, and 13.3m iPads, down nine per cent. Apple reported that 59 per cent of the quarter’s revenues came from international sales, with particularly strong growth in the Middle East, China, and India.
Software and services revenue was $1.9bn, up 19 per cent, with the App Store topping a cumulative 75bn downloads."

Source:  Mobile Marketing, 22nd July 2014

Earlier - Last quarter 43.7m iPhones and 16.3m iPads in Q2 2014

Last year - 31.2m Phones & 14.6m iPads in Q3 2013

Note - Last year Apple stated unit numbers in the press release; this year they didn't

Apple sold 43.7m iPhones and 16.3m iPads in Q2 2014

"Today's earning report out of Cupertino suggests that the iPhone is still increasingly popular among consumers and that declining iPad sales make room for the next big thing from Apple.
Apple managed to sell 43.7 million iPhones and 16.3 million iPads in the second fiscal quarter, beating Wall Street estimates for iPhone sales of 37.7 million.
The iPhone 5S certainly helped prop up its year-over-year revenue boost. Apple CEO Tim Cook said during an earnings call that each of its three iPhones were better than their predecessors."

Source:  TechRadar, 23rd April 2014

Office apps for the iPad were downloaded more than 12m times in the first week

More than 12 million downloads of Word, Excel, PPT & OneNote for #iPad from the @AppStore <3 #OfficeforiPad pic.twitter.com/iT2egNPDkj
— Office (@Office) April 3, 2014

More Apple 'computers' are sold than PCs

"A symbolic moment, this: in Q4 2013 the number of computers* sold by Apple was larger than the number of Windows PC sold globally. If you add Windows Phone to the mix they're more or less exactly equal.
(*Macs, iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads)"
Source:  Data from Gartner & Apple, reported by Benedict Evans on his blog, 12th February 2014