Apple announces ‘biggest ever’ holiday for App Store with $1.1 billion sales in two weeks

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Apple on Wednesday announced that its App Store has had the biggest holiday ever with a record-breaking $1.1 billion revenue in the two weeks ending January 3, as customers increased their spending on apps and In-App Purchases, setting back-to-back weekly records for traffic and purchases.

“January 1, 2016 marked the biggest day in App Store history with customers spending over $144 million,” said Apple. “It broke the previous single-day record set just a week earlier on Christmas Day.”

“The App Store had a holiday season for the record books. We are excited that our customers downloaded and enjoyed so many incredible apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV, spending over $20 billion on the App Store last year alone,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.

“We’re grateful to all the developers who have created the most innovative and exciting apps in the world for our customers. We can’t wait for what’s to come in 2016.”

Since its inception in the summer of 2008, the App Store has now paid developers nearly $40 billion, and that’s after Apple’s 30 percent cut. One-third of that revenue was generated in the last year alone, emphasizing the power of the ecosystem.

The year’s most popular App Store categories across Apple products? Gaming, Social Networking and Entertainment, according to Apple.

“Games and subscription apps dominated this year’s top grossing titles including Clash of Clans, Monster Strike, Game of War – Fire Age and Fantasy Westward Journey, as well as Netflix, Hulu and Match,” said the firm.

In the Apple TV’s App Store, which launched in October 2015, the most popular apps include Rayman Adventures, Beat Sports and HBO NOW. As for the Apple Watch, the most popular apps include Nike+ Running and Lifesum in the Fitness category, and iTranslate and Citymapper in the Travel category.

Source: Apple