It was a very happy New Year indeed for Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), with the US tech giant’s App Store racking up a record amount of sales on the first day of 2017.
The company said the store generated more than US$240mln in purchases on Sunday, following up from the US$3bn+ sales it notched up over the holiday season.
The record day came on the back of a record year that saw its App Store business – which sells various games and applications for Apple products – generate the best part of US$30mln in sales.
Assuming that Apple takes a cut of around 30%, that means the Silicon Valley stalwart took home profits of around US$8.5bn from that side of its operations.
That’s compared to App Store billings of around US$20bn in 2015, with Apple taking a US$6bn slice, implying year-on-year growth of around 40%.
Although US$8.5bn may seem a relatively small figure given that Apple generated over US$215bn in its last fiscal year, most of the cash from apps goes straight to the bottom line, making it increasingly important to the firm’s US$45bn annual profit.
The rise in App Store revenues came despite iPhone sales volumes falling in 2016, and was helped by booming demand in China where app sales rose 90% compared to last year.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, out of the 2.2mln apps available on the store, Pokémon Go was the most-downloaded app of the year.
Shares were up slightly to US$116.70 in early trading.