iPhone users spent over €1 trillion in 2022 — half of it in China

AppStore
iPhone users spent more than €1 trillion on apps in 2022 – half of it in just one country

All of us use apps – and almost everyone spends money on them. A new study now shows what gigantic sums of money are now being spent on the iPhone alone. And for what.

The introduction of the App Store is considered the most important basis for the gigantic effect of the smartphone on our society. And 15 years after its launch in 2008, Apple’s range of apps is still growing. In 2022, the group broke the trillion mark for the purchases made above it for the first time. China in particular has a gigantic share in this.

This is shown by a study by the Analysis Group commissioned by Apple. The economic experts dug through the app store numbers ahead of next week’s upcoming Apple developer fair WWDC. And found all sorts of interesting things. The extent of some app sectors is particularly surprising. Overall, Apple users spent $1.123 trillion on the apps last year. So 1050 billion euros.

Shopping giant China

The largest proportion of this falls into “general retail,” as Apple calls the category. Last year, customers turned over a whopping 621 billion dollars via shopping apps on their iPhone. It’s an increase of over 30 percent. Travel bookings grew even more: At 102 billion dollars, they are not only almost twice as high as last year. But also $45 billion above the previous pre-pandemic high. The other categories of grocery shopping ($52 billion), meal orders ($77 billion) and ride hailing ($48 billion), i.e. services such as taxis and Uber, also grew strongly.

However, the most important market is no longer the home country USA – but China. Chinese iPhone users alone generated 570 billion dollars. So much more than the rest of the world combined. General retail sales account for the bear share there: China alone accounts for 411 billion dollars in the category. And that’s despite the fact that, according to Apple, popular apps like WeChat, which are used to pay in retail stores in China, are not included in the statistics. In the other areas, the country with its almost 1.4 billion inhabitants is also ahead, but the gap is much smaller.

Germany’s share of app store sales is really tiny in comparison: the Germans turned over 19 billion dollars via iPhone apps. In Germany, too, general trade accounts for the largest share at $7.1 billion, followed by travel ($4.8 billion) and food orders ($1.7 billion). Grocery shopping ($0.7 billion) and ride-sharing ($0.5 billion) are even less relevant in this country.

Fat business

The evaluation is also exciting with regard to Apple’s income from the App Store. The group emphasizes that over 90 percent of app revenue goes through the stage without paying a share for Apple. If you consider that the group collects between 15 and 30 percent, depending on the volume, between 15 and 30 billion dollars should have flowed into the company’s coffers via the App Store last year.

By the way, the biggest section in the App Store is still games: there were 220,000 games in the App Store last year alone. At the end of 2008 there were just 3200. But then it quickly becomes productive: According to Apple, the second largest category is business (190,000 apps), followed by education (170,000 apps). After all, there are still 90,000 programs for health and fitness.

Source:AppleAnalysis Group