App Store and Play Store: Apple made twice the revenue of Google in 2017

The success of the App Store does not fade. Over the decade of the Apple app store, it comes up with a number of figures to highlight it. Thus, we learn that the App Store earned $38.5 billion versus $20.1 billion for the Play Store in 2017. That’s quite a staggering number, especially when we know that Android smartphones represent 80% of the market share, versus less than 20% for Apple. Aside from the results for the firm, the good numbers for the App Store are also good news for developers, who raised around $20 billion during the period, of which 1 billion was for French developers.

App Store vs Play Store: Why is the Apple store popular?

The Apple app store is a success of an integrated model with customers willing to subscribe and pay for services much higher than their competitors. But also a wide variety of quality applications, which is an argument for many consumers. In fact, developers almost never save an iOS version because they can generate the most revenue from this iPhone-exclusive store. According to Apple, 1.57 million developers are currently working on the App Store, of which 220,000 are in France.

Some other aspects of the App Store give it a comparative advantage over its competitors. The Apple store is organized with categories that can highlight new quality apps. Developers don’t need to worry about ecosystem fragmentation. Paradoxically, there’s also the fact that the procedure for submitting an application is quite lengthy: Apple checks everything, which leads to less malicious apps, fake apps, or apps that don’t follow the code of design. In case of rejection, the developer knows which points to improve to re-suggest his application, which leads them to better adherence to the rules set by the firm and therefore a better user experience.