Apple announced having paid over $1 billion to developers in June of 2010 after two years of the App Store sales involving over five billion downloads. This number than jumped to $2.5 billion and more than doubled in both size and pace in just one year. After the launch of the iPhone 4S, Apple ended up selling 250 million iOS devices and the App Store had grown to a total of 18 billion downloads, paying out over $3 billion to developers. The Cupertino giant has no reached $700,000 in payments to developers in just this past quarter, pushing its cumulative payouts to developers above $4 billion.
What makes this information a bit more ironic is Eric Schmidt’s (Google’s Chairman) prediction for the first half of 2012. Schmidt predicted that mobile developers would be “prioritizing” Android development over iOS stating that “ultimately, application vendors are driven by volume, and volume is favored by the open approach Google is taking.” This definitely doesn’t seem to be the case as the numbers for Apple continually grow beyond expectations.
As more consumers get their hands on an iOS device, the numbers will continually grow exponentially. Given that the iPad 3 is rumored to launch in the upcoming months, it is likely that there will be another surge in not only iOS device sales but also app downloads and therefore payments to developers. It seems to be a booming industry and developers seem to have the formula for success by creating a useful app for the iOS platform.
Are you surprised by the numbers? Are you planning on developing an app or learning how to do just that? Share any thoughts, comments, and experiences below!
Source: Apple
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