Tucked away on the iPhone 2.0 version of Apple’s Application Store is a counter for the number of times that each application has been purchased . When this information is combined with an application’s price, and the uniform 30% that Apple pockets on each download, it is possible to know how much Apple is making from the App Store. As of 4PM (PST), that number hovers around $55,000. This is pretty incredible given that the iPhone 2.0 software is not officially available and App Store does not officially open till tomorrow, that bloggers have only been able to access the Apps Store for less than 18 hours, and that the 3G iPhone, with the App store built in out of the box, is not even on sale yet in the United States. If sales of applications stay at the current pace, which they won’t, because they are going to speed up dramatically, the Application Store would still provide Apple with an additional twenty million dollars of revenue per year.
Embedded in the post is a simple revenue model for the App Store, using the fifty most popular applications. We will update this regularly, hopefully including all of the 100 most popular Apps, so stay posted for more data points and more revenue models. That is, unless Apple disables the counter in order to stymie bloggers and stock analysts eager to know how much incremental income Apple is going to make from selling Applications in the App Store.
A few notes on the data are necessary. I stopped updating the data at 4PM (PST), but it was affected by sales that occurred over the ten or so minutes that I spent collecting the data. Also, Apple’s counter has some bugs. In the Application Store, the number of sales does not always correspond to an Application’s position on the Top-50 list. My list is a correct ranking based strictly on the number of downloads. And, while collecting the data I noticed that sometimes the counter would go down, something that makes no sense in an Application download store. However, this is still the best and most accurate data we have on the impact of the Application Store on Apple’s bottom line.
I’m surprised that facebook which charges silly $1 fees for sending useless virtual gifts people is offering its FB app for free?
I thought the figures might be more than this one!
But anyways after the actual release and launch, the figures might rush up!
I don’t know what it is but the iTunes model definitely works.
Good start.
I’m not purchasing any apps until I can update my iPod touch. I’m going on a trip to the beach in florida and desperately want the games but not going to waste the money if I can’t download the apps to my iPod in the A.M. before I leave. Any word on when the firmware update will arrive?
Actually i think you missed a point there. You only counted the sales in the US. As I found out here, those 62 app stores are independent. The actual result might be double of 55,000. That’s my two cents.
Thanks for the post though
how cool —- I am definitely excited for the 3G iPhone, and the apps that come with it. Avantar.us looks like it has some interesting ones…
Kay, great point! I now noticed I can change my country on the Home of the App Store and then view what apps are being offered in other countries. Too bad I can’t even download the free apps there though without a credit card in that country…
Do Apps work on ‘old’ iPhones??
@Brett - Yes.
I noticed that some of the free apps were showing number of downloads before, and now they are showing “0″ (from what I can see on my iPhone).
@ Kay: You are right, I only included US data, and thank you for bringing it to my attention that each country has its own store. However, the point still stands that Apple will make a lot of money off of the Apps Store. Your point only strengthens my assertion.
@Dmo: We have been noticing the same thing. I tried to refresh the data prior to posting, only to discover that many of the paid applications had their counters reset to zero. Perhaps this is a simple way for Apple to keep bloggers and analysts from reading the tea leaves prior to earnings announcements.
What about the apps you find at http://www.iphoneapplicationlist.com? I noticed a lot of their apps are also on the apple app store. If can download the same thing for free, you bet I’m not going to pay, even if it’s just 0,99 cents!!
actually, that number is a bit low.
Texas Holdem is a game produced by Apple. So I’m assuming that 100% of that revenue goes to them.
I’d also imagine that this will likely be only one of many Apple produced apps/games that have a pricetag.
-Don
$55k? My good man, that’s peanuts!
Yup, my counter is still 0. No idea how many downloads we’re getting. Download Imangi! http://www.imangi.com
@ Raskin
Considering that (1)iPhone OS 2.0 was just made officially available, (2)it’s been unofficially available for only 18 hours at time of post (3) the iPhone 3G just went on sale in the US, $55k is impressive as pointed out in the article.
@ Chuck
Considering that Apple makes more than a billion at the iTunes store annually, no, $55k isn’t even blip. I know everyone is all worked up about the new gadget, but perspective people.
“If sales of applications stay at the current pace, which they won’t, because they are going to speed up dramatically”
Yeah, for this weekend, and probably July and August. But after that, the pace will slooooooowwwww dowwwwwwn dramatically. REALLY dramatically.
It’s clearly going to be another cash cow for apple. Would I like the 30% model as a developer. probably not. Is android going to change that? We don’t know, but certainly hope so. A small fee for facilitating the deal is OK, making a massive cut on other people’s IP is not.
Hey Kimerling - I didn’t know you were here these days.
I do wonder what the effect of the App Store is going to be on my beloved Installer, though. Hoping that people do still keep bringing the stuff out to the Installer…
Very very curious for the Appstore too.
It looks like the downloads always reads zero now. Does anyone still have screenshots from when it was showing how many downloads? I wonder if there is a correlation between number of reviews and downloads. Is it 1:10 or 1:100. If it was pretty consistent then in the future we could just look at the number of reviews to guess how many of that app/game was sold. Was anyone smart enough to get screenshots that showed both? Post here please if you did!
@20 Peter Urban: You do know that the 30% is Apple’s cut and the 70% goes to the developer right? 70% is a bigger cut than I read about developers getting from many online stores. And with Apple its one centralized store. You dont have to worry about drm, credit cards, bandwidth, etc… It doesnt seem usurious.