Apple's App Store generated over $1.4 trillion in developer billings and sales in 2025, according to a study commissioned by the company and conducted by economists at Analysis Group. This amount is nearly triple the ecosystem's size since 2019. It highlights the platform's ongoing importance in how consumers shop, work, and use services on their devices.
The total number includes a wide range of transactions. Not all involved Apple taking a commission. For over 90 percent of the billings and sales the App Store facilitated, developers paid no fee to Apple. Most of the total — $1.1 trillion — came from sales of physical goods and services, driven mainly by grocery, food delivery and pickup, general retail, and travel. Digital goods and services made up $149 billion of the total, led by games, enterprise apps, and video streaming, while in-app advertising contributed an additional $151 billion.
The App Store now attracts more than 850 million average weekly users across 175 countries. This scale allows developers to reach a global customer base with relatively low barriers to distribution.
“Developers are the heartbeat of the App Store, and this year’s incredible milestone is a testament to their boundless creativity,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are deeply committed to providing developers with the tools, technologies, and trusted platforms they need to build for the future. Together, developers are creating apps that enrich the lives of users around the world.”
AI takes center stage
One striking finding from the 2025 data is the rise of artificial intelligence. More than 40 of the top 100 apps now offer consumer-facing AI features. These apps showed stronger growth in billings than their non-AI counterparts among the top 100. This trend reflects a wider integration of AI in various app categories, from personalized recommendations in health and fitness apps to AI-assisted creative tools in photo and video editing and cloud-based automation in productivity software.
Apple has been showcasing its developer frameworks as a way to enable on-device AI. The Foundation Models framework, part of its Apple Intelligence suite, allows developers to use a large language model that runs locally on devices. This means AI features can work offline and without added inference costs. The privacy argument — that data processed on-device stays on the user's phone — has become a recurring theme in how Apple promotes this capability to developers and consumers.
On the tooling side, the latest version of Xcode, Apple's development environment, includes coding features that can operate with more autonomy, making parts of the build process smoother. Apple frames this as lowering the barriers to app development, which allows more creators to bring their products to market.
Regional patterns
The geographical spread of the ecosystem's growth adds depth to the overall numbers. Billings and sales in China have more than doubled in the past six years, while they have more than tripled in the United States and Europe. Spending on physical goods and services was the highest in every region, with general retail coming first across all markets.
However, consumer habits varied across regions. Travel was the second-largest category in the US, Europe, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil. In South Korea, food delivery and pickup were in that position. In China, grocery and food delivery ranked second and third, respectively. These differences suggest that while the App Store offers a shared system, the transactions passing through it reflect local behavior rather than uniform global trends.
Developer infrastructure
Along with the economic data, Apple used the announcement to emphasize its commitment to supporting developers. In 2025, its Developer Centers hosted thousands of developers in the US, China, India, and Singapore. A new center in Berlin is set to open later this year to support European developers. Apple also runs nearly 20 Developer Academies in Brazil, Indonesia, Italy, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and the US, where they offer training in coding, AI, design, and marketing.
Developers can access in-person and online programs, which include sessions with Apple staff and support in nine languages. The company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, happening next week, will showcase new APIs, frameworks, and platform features across Apple's products.
The study's figures should be viewed in context. Analysis Group was hired by Apple, and the $1.4 trillion figure represents transactions facilitated by the App Store rather than the revenue Apple itself earns. This distinction is important when assessing the platform's direct commercial value. Nonetheless, the data shows significant scale, and the growth related to AI indicates a meaningful shift in what developers are creating and what users are willing to pay for.