Apple App Store ecosystem thriving in India, facilitated Rs 44,447 crore in billings and sales in 2024

In recent years, Apple has doubled down on investments in India. It has signed multiple supply partners including Foxconn, Tata Group and Pegatron to produce iPhones locally in the several plants spread across Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu in southern India.

Last year, iPhone productions in India exceeded the $17.5 billion (approx. Rs 1 Lakh crore) mark in terms of value, 46 per cent more than the previous year.

While the production of Apple hardware is at an all-time high, Indian iOS developers are earning big on the Apple App Store.

In a study by Professor Viswanath Pingali from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A), the Apple App Store has facilitated a whopping $5.31 billion (around Rs 44,447 crore) in billings and sales in 2024.

Last year, App Store developers generated around $4.65 billion (roughly Rs 38,906 crore) in total billings and sales from the sale of physical goods and services.

On the App Store, around $352.9 million (approx. Rs 3,014 crore) came from in-app advertising, and $302 million (roughly Rs 2,527 crore) came from digital goods and services.

It should be noted that 94 per cent of the developers did not have to pay any commission to Apple. Globally, well-established firms have to pay up to 30 per cent of their billing to Apple as a gate-keeping charge.

After the Covid-induced lockdowns worldwide, many app developer companies suffered huge losses. To help young emerging firms, Apple announced the App Store Small Business Program in 2021.

The IIM-A professor's study has shown that the total App Store earnings of small Indian developers increased by 74 per cent between 2021 and 2024.

A solo Indie developer, Raja Vijayaraman, is one of the beneficiaries of the App Store Small Business Program. His sun and moon-tracking app Lumy was the 2024 App Store Award winner.

“As a mechanical engineer turned developer, I started from scratch with no coding background or industry connections. Apple’s developer resources, design guidance, and powerful technologies like SwiftUI have empowered me to create apps like Lumy, reaching users worldwide. The App Store made it possible for an indie creator like me to turn passion into a sustainable career. It’s heartening to receive emails from people across cultures sharing how my apps improve their daily routines,” said Vijayaraman.

The report also revealed that close to 80 per cent of India-based developers’ App Store earnings came from users outside of the country. They get access to more than 175 countries worldwide to offer their services and 87 per cent of developers were active on multiple storefronts.

Further, throughout the year, users from all over the world downloaded apps from developers in India more than 755 million times through the App Store — twice as many as five years ago.

For instance, Rama Krishna, the founder of Fluid Touch has made good use of App Store to expand the reach of their apps to over 150 countries. Fluid Touch offers the popular note-taking app Noteshelf, which by the way is available in 10 languages. It was launched in 2010, and it offers users a way to minimise distractions and keep focused on the task at hand.

In India, the Cupertino-based technology major runs the Apple Developer Center (previously App Accelerator) in Bengaluru to help budding developers.

Be it a teenager or a professional software programmer, they can sign up for the programme to fine-tune their applications. Selected firms and students will also get the opportunity to speak with Apple experts and also access to advanced tools, including 2,50,000-plus APIs as part of frameworks such as HealthKit, Metal, and Core ML. as well.

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