Apple’s App Store hits 2M apps, 130B downloads, $50B paid to developers

This morning at Apple’s annual WWDC event, CEO Tim Cook gave attendees an update on the sizable growth of its App Store and the developer community in general. Today, he announced the company hit a new milestone with the App Store: there are now over 2 million apps on the App Store – up from 1.5 million announced this time last year. And those apps have been downloaded 130 billion times.

At last year’s WWDC, Apple said apps had been downloaded 100 billion times and had paid out $30 billion to developers. That latter figure has now grown as well, to nearly $50 billion, said Cook.

The now eight-year old App Store has grown significantly over the years, but many developers have been struggling to make building apps a profitable business. To some extent, the problem of app discovery has been a challenge – and that’s something Apple has tried to address with an App Store overhaul it announced just ahead of WWDC. The revamp introduces a number of changes, including search ads.

These changes, Apple believes, will help inspire consumers to find new apps and install them. But it may or not work – people are only really using a handful of apps regularly, and keeping them engaged with newer ones is a challenge.

But Apple is still betting big on its developer community, as they’re a key part of Apple’s future. Cook said that this community is still growing – there are now 13 million registered developers building for its platforms, and 2 million were added in the last year alone.

At the sold-out WWDC, over 70 percent of attendees are there for the first time ever, the CEO also notes. And 100 are under the age of 18. “The youngest is only 9. Wow,” said Cook. She’ll make “one heck of a developer,” he added.