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New Year’s Day was another record-setting day for Apple’s App Store

New Year’s Day was another record-setting day for Apple’s App Store

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And we all still love Pokemon

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Somebody playing Pokémon Go and trying to catch Mewtwo.
Sam Byford / The Verge

Apple just released its end-of-year App Store numbers for 2017 and the first day of the new year, and the holiday season was once again a boon in terms of app purchases.

During the week-long period of December 24 to December 31, 2017, Apple customers spent over $890 million on apps or purchases within apps. And on New Years Day alone, people spent $300 million in the App Store, beating out last year’s record-setting number of $240 million in purchases on January 1, 2017.

That means there were more than a billion dollars total in App Store purchases made during the holidays, a not-insignificant amount, especially when you consider third-party research reports that suggest the majority of smartphone users in the US download zero new apps per month. Last year, Apple said December 2016 was the App Store’s biggest month ever, bringing in $3 billion in revenue; this year, it doesn’t seem to have broken out the monthly data for December (though we’ve asked for it).

Apple also said it paid out developers $26.5 billion in 2017, up from $20 billion in 2016. And Pokemon Go nabbed the top app spot once again, re-launching the app late in the year with new AR features – which Apple, naturally, pointed out were built on top of ARKit.

We’ve asked Apple for more details about the purchases made within the above-mentioned time frames – how many of these were subscription-based purchases versus one-time downloads or in-app purchases. Apple did not respond to our request for information by the time of publication. 2017 also marked the first full year of Apple’s App Store changes going into effect, from a revenue-share perspective.