62% of App Store revenue comes from microtransactions in games

The trial between Epic Games and Apple sheds light on an increasing number of internal details of the companies. During it, expert witness Lorin Hitt shared that 62% of all App Store revenue comes from purchases in games.

Hitt did not specify exactly what amount it is, and to what period it belongs.

However, he added that until 2018, iOS users spent an average of $5 per in-game purchase. This price tag doubled to $10 after the appearance of Fortnite in the store. Hitt also pointed out that in 2018, paid applications also rose in price – from $9 to $16.

According to the data announced during the trial, there are now about 2 million applications in the App Store, of which 280 thousand are games. Moreover, 75% of the games in the store are distributed completely free of charge and only 17% of gamers need to buy in-game items to access the content.

It is important to note that the data on the number of applications do not converge with those that are publicly available. For example, the PocketGamer portal, which conducts a monthly count of active iOS apps, estimates that there are 4.5 million apps in the American App Store alone, 983,000 of which are games.

Also yesterday during the meeting, Phil Schiller, former vice president of marketing at Apple, said that the App Store earned over $20 billion for 30% commission from developers. Like Hitt, Schiller did not specify what period he was talking about. Probably from the launch of the store in 2008 to 2020 (in early August 2020, Schiller resigned as head of Apple’s marketing department).

At the same time, Schiller stressed that Apple still does not know whether the App Store makes a profit due to the difficulties of calculating the company’s operating expenses.