In 2021, Apple's App Store revenue is record again, how long can Apple "lie and win"?

After the market capitalization exceeded the $3 trillion mark, the number of paid service users of Apple exceeded 745 million

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Author | Li Yangxia

Apple said monday it already has 745 million paid subscribers, including services like Apple Music and iCloud, as well as users who subscribe to apps through the App Store. Last summer that number was 700 million.

In addition to this, Apple paid $60 billion to developers in 2021, accounting for 70% to 85% of Apple's total App Store revenue, while the App Store generated 15% to 30% of sales from digital transactions of apps.

Since the Launch of the App Store in 2008, a total of $260 billion has been paid to developers.

Apple said in 2019 that it has paid $155 billion to developers since 2008. By the end of 2020, that number had become $200 billion, an increase of $45 billion compared to 2019. The latest data disclosed by Apple on Monday showed that the figure increased by $60 billion in 2021.

From the app store data over the years, it can be found that the sales of the App Store will continue to grow rapidly, which will bring another booster to the capital market.

This part of the statistics shows the development momentum of its service business. Because investors and analysts want to see that Apple not only makes money selling hardware, but also sells services and apps to customers, such as app downloads.

It is worth mentioning that assuming that Apple pays developers the equivalent of 30% of the total sales of Apple's App Store, it is possible to roughly estimate the total revenue of Apple's App Store.

According to CNBC's analysis, if Apple's commission is unified at 30%, the Total Revenue of the Apple App Store will exceed $64 billion in 2020. Then app store sales peaked at $85.71 billion in 2021. If Apple's commission is 15%, the corresponding sales are $70.58 billion.

But over the past year, Apple has changed its commission structure several times to meet the challenges posed by regulators and the law. After all, its App Store's business model, which earns commissions from purchases of in-store digital goods, has become a target for proposed legislation in the U.S. and Europe.

Apple also launched the "Small Business Program" in 2021, cutting fees by 15 percent for developers with less than $1 million a year. It's estimated that as many as 98 percent of App Store developers fall into this category, but that's a tiny fraction of total sales.

Apple has also launched a news app that would cut their fees to 15 percent if developers delivered content to Apple News in August. For all developers, Apple also only charges 15% of the subscription fee for the second year, not 30%.

In addition, Apple has announced the following upcoming features:

1) Later this year, iPhone and Apple Watch users in U.S. states will be able to add driver's licenses or state ID cards to the Wallet app.

2) Apple will continue to expand into the field of classical music. Last year, Apple Music acquired classical music service Primephonic, a company that specializes in providing classical music streaming services, and this year, Apple plans to launch a standalone Apple Music classical music app later in the world.

3) 3D Apple Maps will be available later this year in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

Although Apple has become the world's first company with a market capitalization of more than $3 trillion, no matter how large the company is, there is no absolute security. The voices of being spat at "eating the old" and lacking innovation ability are endless. In addition to the record high market capitalization and sales, in the face of the new market environment, Apple also needs to come up with something more convincing.

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