2016 was a very good year for app stores around the world, with total downloads from the AppStore and Google Play reaching 90 billion. We are talking about a 15% increase compared to 2015, it being mainly associated with Google Play, the AppStore having a smaller increase, but that was to be expected.
You can see from the image below that Google Play generates about 3 times more downloads than the AppStore, but this is quite normal. The number of Android application users is much higher than that of iOS users, so it is logical to see that they download more applications from the Google store.
Now moving on to what matters more, namely the money generated by the application stores, well the AppStore is still "king". According to those from AppAnnie, the authors of this study, developers collected 35 billion dollars in 2016 by distributing applications in the AppStore and Google Play stores.
The figure is 40% higher than the one recorded during the last year and as you can see from the image below, two thirds comes from the AppStore. Even if Google Play generates 3 times more downloads than the AppStore, Apple's store still generates much higher revenues for the company and application developers.
If to this amount we add the money generated by third-party app stores and the money from the ads displayed in the apps, then we reach 89 billion dollars. In this idea, the main two app stores generate just over a third of all money earned by developers from app distribution.
"In 2016, publishers were paid over $35 billion in revenue across the iOS App Store and Google Play. When we include third-party Android stores and advertising revenue, the 2016 total amount paid to publishers increases to nearly $89 billion.”
Considering the very large sums of money that are generated through the development of applications, in the coming years we can expect that their number will continue to grow. Of course, the vast majority of this money is generated by a maximum of 10 countries, the ones where there are people willing to pay for the work done by the developers.
