Analyst: Apple’s iOS economy could reach half a trillion dollars in 2019; people will spend $100 million a day on apps by the end of 2018

According to the latest revenue data from Apple, iOS developers earned $26.5 billion from App Store purchases in 2017. Asymco analyst Horace Dediu took a deep dive at what this figure means for the App Store. According to his research and findings, App Store’s revenue  is set to overtake Global Box Office revenues this year. iOS economy is projected to reach half trillion revenue in 2019. He projected that people will spend $100m a day on apps by the end of 2018.

Apple achieved a rate of 33% when compared to its 2016 report when its developers earned  $20 billion. The iOS economy raked in about $380 billion in revenues 2017, including hardware sales. The cumulative payments to developers can be calculated as $86.5 billion. This amount was generated in a span of less than 10 years, with the first billion paid by June 2010. Asymco’s forecast is also supported by a another  report from the data insights firm Sensor Tower. The company claims that worldwide mobile app revenue, including both Android and iPhone apps, totaled $58.6 billion in 2017. That total includes both paid downloads and in-app purchases. In 2016, the same number, according to Sensor Tower, was $43.5 billion.

The following are a few observations from Asymco analysis:

• Developer payment rate is now above $25 billion/yr. I’ve been notified via Twitter that this is higher than the revenue of McDonald’s Corporation in 2016.
• During this year iOS users will be spending about $100 million per day for Apps. This was Google’s AdWords revenue rate in 2012.
• The spending on App Store has been rising steadily, adding about $5 billion/yr since mid 2011.
• Apps are the biggest component of Apple services and helped that segment gross over $57 billion in 2017, passing Fortune 100 level (net of developer payments).”

Asymco estimates that App Store revenues alone will overtake Global Box Office revenues by the end of 2018.

Source: Asymco – App Store alone will overtake Global Box Office revenues.

Including hardware sales,  expects the iOS economy cleared about $380 billion in revenues 2017.