94% of U.S. App Store Revenue Comes From the Top 1% of Monetizing Publishers

Summary

During Q1 2016, the top 1 percent of U.S. App Store publishers with paid or in-app purchase (IAP) apps accounted for 94 percent of total revenue, approximately $1.34 billion out of $1.43 billion. Only 623 publishers earned this amount, while the remaining 61,677 publishers split only $85.8 million.

In terms of downloads, the top 1 percent of all 127,000 publishers with ranking apps generated 70 percent of the 1.38 billion downloads, or about 966 million. This disparity underscores the difficulty of app discoverability, prompting speculation about an App Store redesign. Despite potential improvements, intense competition will persist, requiring publishers to optimize search, conversion, and monetization.