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During its first quarter conference call, Apple revealed that it had paid a whopping $7 billion dollars to app developers. At his keynote speech at the Goldman Sachs investor conference this morning, Tim Cook updated Apple’s payout figures, announcing that the company had paid $8 billion to developers, marking $1 billion in payouts since January 13.
That’s a remarkable increase in developer payouts. In October of 2012, the amount paid to developers was just $6.5 billion, meaning Apple’s holiday season brought in about $1.5 billion for developers, as millions of people hit the App Store with newly purchased devices to download apps.
Because Apple keeps just 30 percent from App Store sales, $1 billion to developers since January 13 means that Apple sold more than $3 billion worth of apps in that short time frame.
There are 775,000 apps in the App Store as of December, which means Apple has a thriving app ecosystem on its hands.
During his talk at Goldman Sachs, Cook had a few other interesting things to say, beyond App Store numbers. He announced that Apple had plans to close 20 of its retail stores, to facilitate expansion. The stores will be built larger and in many cases, moved to more spacious retail locations.
Apple moved and remodeled one of its flagship stores in Palo Alto in late 2012, reolocating it to a new retail location and expanding the size of the store. The Palo Alto remodel will likely serve as a model for the rest of the Apple Store expansions.
According to Tim Cook, some of the Apple retail locations are not large enough to support the kind of traffic that they receive. Apple Stores service approximately 10 million people per week at 400 different locations.
In addition to remodeling several Apple Stores, Apple will be opening 30 new stores as well, primarily outside of the United States. The next Apple Store will, in fact, be built in Turkey.
Cook credited retail Apple Stores with rapid iPad adoption rates. “I don’t think we would have been nearly as successful with the iPad, as an example, if it weren’t for our stores.” Cook believes that Apple’s retail locations are immensely important, serving as “the face of Apple for almost all customers.”
[via TechCrunch]
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