Over $10 billion — that’s how much revenue Apple’s U.S. App Store raked in last year, according to a new analysis by app intelligence provider Appfigures.
The firm’s estimates indicate that U.S. App Store revenue from commissions more than doubled between 2020 and 2024. In 2020, Apple’s share of App Store commissions was approximately $4.76 billion, growing to over $10.1 billion by 2024.
Based on Appfigures’ data, U.S. App Store developers generated $33.68 billion in gross revenue from their apps and games using Apple’s payments system in 2024, and took home $23.57 billion after Apple’s cut.
Though Apple doesn’t typically break out its App Store revenue during earnings, it did publish a report in May 2023 where it said the App Store globally generated $104 billion in estimated billings for digital goods and services in 2022.
However, Appfigures’ analysis found the App Store made $61.5 billion globally in 2022, which grew to $91.3 billion in 2024. From this, Apple made more than $27.39 billion in commissions globally last year, Appfigures also said.
That leads to a discrepancy between Appfigures’ analysis and Apple’s own.
This can be explained by an important caveat found in Apple’s report. Under Apple’s chart, it states that its “billings and sales” figures are “not the same as App Store billings.” That’s important here.
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When Apple wrote its report, the company was trying to show how big the App Store is and how key it is to the overall economy, so it merged App Store revenue with revenue generated outside the App Store to generate its total for the “Billings and Sales” category.
In the report, Apple calculated the portion of an app’s total revenue that is facilitated by the App Store, even if the purchase was made elsewhere. For instance, if a user buys a subscription to Hulu on the web, but then spends 60% of their time streaming Hulu on Apple devices, Apple credits itself with facilitating 60% of that user’s spend. (To determine usage, the report relied on third-party sources, like market research firms, to estimate how much usage occurred on smartphones versus tablets, desktops, or TVs.)
Apple also allows enterprises to distribute apps with in-app purchases, but these aren’t visible in the App Store.
Examining the numbers around U.S. Apple App Store revenue is more relevant than ever in the wake of the recent court ruling that now prevents Apple from charging a 27% commission on transactions that take place outside the App Store.
Apple initially attempted to comply with the court’s injunction resulting from its antitrust battle with Fortnite maker Epic Games by making changes that wouldn’t harm App Store profits.
To do so, Apple last year gave developers a way to apply for an exception to its App Store rules so they could add web links inside their apps that directed customers to external purchases. However, Apple continued to charge a 27% commission on those purchases and dictated how the website links should appear. (This even included the use of “scare screens” to warn consumers of the dangers of making purchases outside the App Store.)
Last week, a judge ruled that Apple was in “willful violation” of the 2021 injunction by continuing to collect fees on purchases made outside apps and by creating new anticompetitive barriers.
This decision forced Apple to update its U.S. App Store rules, which now allow developers to link out to other ways for consumers to make purchases, without obstacles or commissions. Since then, several apps have taken advantage of the ability to introduce web payments, including Spotify, Amazon Kindle, and Patreon. One small game emulator called Delta is now supporting itself via Patreon memberships, too.
Apple is appealing the decision, arguing in its most recent filing that the ruling causes Apple “grave irreparable harm.”
“These restrictions, which will cost Apple substantial sums annually, are based on conduct that has never been adjudicated to be (and is not) unlawful,” Apple’s filing stated. “Rather, they were imposed to punish Apple for purported non-compliance with an earlier state-law injunction that is itself invalid.”
This argument won’t likely go over well with developers, as many believe Apple should have lowered commissions for everyone years ago, not just for small business developers.
Appfigures’ analysis also broke down U.S. App Store revenue by apps and games, which generated Apple approximately $6.28 billion and $3.83 billion, respectively, in 2024.
Together, these figures highlight how critical App Store revenue remains to Apple’s bottom line, and why it’s fighting so hard to retain control.
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Design company Figma today announced multiple features, including AI-powered site and web app creation, a way for marketers to create assets in bulk, and a new drawing tool. With this launch, the company is taking on other creative solutions such as Canva and Adobe, along with AI-powered website and prototype creators such as WordPress, Wix, Hostinger, and Replit.
The company’s website-creation tool is called Figma Sites. The startup said that often designers build prototypes of what a site should look like within Figma. With the new AI-powered tool, they can easily create websites and even publish them. Once the site is generated, collaborators can easily change elements of the site through an editor without prompting.
Users can also add transitions, animations, and scroll effects while making the site responsive. Figma is adding the ability to directly generate blog posts from its site. That means the Sites will have a content management system (CMS), which is an upcoming feature, baked in that lets users edit posts within the design of a blog and also manage other assets such as thumbnails and slugs.
For interactive elements like stock tickers, you can add custom code or use AI to generate code for you.
Figma Make, on the other hand, is a similar AI-powered tool, which is geared more toward ideation and prototyping. Users can input a prompt to create a web application. The prototype app is collaborative, and users can prompt the assistant to change or add certain elements. Plus, if there is a developer on the team, they can directly modify the code to make necessary changes.
Users can also generate small interactive elements, such as a clock, and embed them in the pages published through Figma Sites later.
Yuhki Yamashita, chief product officer at Figma, said that both products share a lot of features and underlying technology.
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“We want to enable high-fidelity prototyping with Figma, especially with Figma Make. You can add more data to it and try to see how viable an idea is in terms of final implementation. Whereas Figma Site is useful for a marketing and design team when they exactly know how a site should look and take full control of that,” Yamashita told TechCrunch while describing the differentiation between these products.
Multiple companies in different sectors are looking for a way to create interactive experiences using AI. Website hosting providers such as Squarespace, Wix, WordPress, and Hostinger have released tools to let users easily create websites through AI. On the other hand, tools like Replit and Lovable are pushing users to create apps or prototypes without coding knowledge. Last month, even Canva released a way to create interactive experiences within its designs with Canva Code.
This isn’t Figma’s first foray into prototyping, though. Last year, it released a Make Design feature, which had to be pulled after users accused the company of heavily training the tool on existing apps.
What’s more, Figma is releasing a new tool for marketers called Figma Buzz. With these tools, marketers can easily use templates created by designers with brand-specific designs to make new creatives. They can also use a tool to insert AI-generated images or change the background of certain assets. Marketers can also create assets in bulk using data from sources like spreadsheets.
The startup is also launching a tool called Figma Draw for vector editing and illustrations. Yamashita said that designers often had to export their vector designs outside Figma to make edits. The company is now adding features like text on a path, pattern fill, brushes, multi-vector edit, adding noise and texture, and a lasso selection to its Draw product.
Figma launched its Slides tool for creating presentations last year. With the new asset creation and drawing tool, the company is directly competing with creative suites such as Adobe and Canva. Yamashita denied that the company is directly competing with these creative tools. He said that Figma is in the business of building digital products, and a third of the company’s users are developers, thanks to tools like Dev Mode.
The company is announcing a new plan called a content seat starting at $8 per month, which will give users access to Figma Buzz, Slides, FigJam, and Sites CMS.
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