How lucrative Apple’s App Store has been for developers over the years (AAPL)

pulse

June 5, 2017 11:31 PM

App developers have good reason to meet with Apple at its WWDC conference this week.

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This week marks WWDC, Apple’s annual developer conference. While the company’s consumer-facing announcements get the most buzz, the show is also a chance for Apple to connect and exchange ideas with the many app makers that help make its devices as useful as they are.

And as this chart from Statista shows, those developers have good reason to head down to San Jose this year — Apple’s app business is still lucrative, and it continues to grow.

Apple said last week that developers have collectively earned more than $70 billion from its iOS App Store since it launched in 2008. Given that Apple takes a roughly 30% cut from App Store sales, the company appears to have sold roughly $100 billion worth of software through the iPhone and iPad.

That said, the wealth isn't spread equally. The top 1% of developers totally dominate downloads for the App Store, leaving the vast majority of developers fighting for pieces of a relatively small pie. But if you can make a hit, there's money to be made here.

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