Apple says small App Store developers are booming

Ahead of its Worldwide Developers Conference next month, Apple would like you to know that small developers are doing big business in its App Store.



The company defines that cohort as developers with fewer than 1 million annual downloads and up to $1 million a year in revenue, minus those who didn’t get 1,000 downloads in any year. According to a report it commissioned from Analysis Group, such outfits make up 90% of all App Store developers. And from 2020 to 2022, the report says, their aggregate App Store revenue grew by 71% globally and 87% in the United States. Health, fitness, and lifestyle apps were among the fastest-growing categories.



Reflecting the App Store’s global footprint, 40% of small developers’ downloads come from outside their home countries. Among developers who published software on the App Store for the first time in 2022, 25% were in Europe, 23% in China, 14% in the U.S., 4% in Japan, and 35% from elsewhere.



Staring in 2021, Apple reduced its standard 30% commission on App Store revenues to 15% for small developers. Among its programs designed to support them are Entrepreneur Camp, which is aimed at underrepresented developers, and a one-on-one and group-support offering called App Store Foundations.



Apple’s periodic reminders that it’s helped many companies build thriving businesses via its App Store counterbalance ongoing controversy over its monopoly on iOS app distribution, the cut it takes of revenues, and the policies it imposes on third-party developers. In 2021, the company agreed to pay $100 million to small developers to settle a class-action suit. (A year later, Google reached a $90 million settlement in a similar case over the Google Play store.)



In December, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported that Apple would allow third-party-app stores and “sideloading” of individual apps directly onto iPhones and iPads, getting ahead of European Union regulations designed to limit the gatekeeping role of the companies that operate platforms. If the App Store does end up with competition, it will give Apple the opportunity to win small developers’ hearts by being the best venue for their iOS/iPadOS wares—not the only one.