Lightspeed has done a little math on the iTunes app store and found that Apple made between $20 and 45 million on iPhone Apps so far. Their methodology took the total number of apps sold – $1 billion – and the average price of iPhone apps – about $2.65.
Multiplying this by 25-50m paid apps, that suggests that the cumulative revenue from iphone apps is around $70-$160m. Apple gets 30% of this so Apple has probably made around $20-45m from the billion iPhone apps downloaded. (Note that if you use an assumption closer to $1.50 for weighted average app price, then this estimate drops to around $12-27m).
It’s not huge, but I doubt Apple got into the app control business for kicks. An, when compared to the amount Microsoft and Nokia get for apps that run on WinMobile and Symbian – just about $0 – it’s a pretty tight deal.
wait if 1 billion were downloaded, and the avg app is $2.65 that would make $2.65 billion. and most apps as stated above are probably more like $1 on avg so lets take $1 billion as total purchased so 30% would be like 300 million. Or maybe im missing something
You did a very poor job of describing this finding. Firstly, it wasn’t $1 billion apps sold. It was 1 billion (not currency) apps DOWNLOADED. Secondly, you began the quote too late. It doesn’t make sense as is.
Come on! Let’s see some decent reporting.
@thehbcrew. You are missing something. Read the actual report page. Many of the apps downloaded are free. The finding is based on a ratio of somewhere between 1:15 to 1:40 (paid to free apps).
Not your fault. Crunchgear did a crappy job here.
Go check the math on your sister-site, TechCrunch — they do an excellent job of debunking the Lightspeed Ventures report, and show how the bottom end of the range is closer to $60M.