Apps gave Apple $5.3 billion in India in 2024 – Times of India-OxBig News Network

Happy developers: iOS stores facilitate Rs 45k crore sales in 2024
NEW DELHI: It’s not just the multi-billion-dollar sale of iPhones and lucrative exports, the world’s biggest electronics company Apple has also hit a jackpot in developer billings and sales on the iOS app ecosystem in India.
The Cupertino-headquartered company has reaped in a rich engagement through its app ecosystem in India, raking in $5.3 billion (around Rs 44,447 crore) last year.
This has opened a whole new frontier for the company in India, and has seen Apple’s business engagement cross nearly $27 billion (Rs 2.3 lakh crore) in 2024, sources told TOI. This includes around $8 billion of sales of iPhones and other products such as Air Pods, MacBooks and iPads in the local market, $14 billion of exports (a large part to the US), and $5-billion-plus of app store transactions.

Such has been the intensity through the India app Store that Apple’s global CEO Tim Cook has termed it a “miracle for developers in India” due to the rush in transactions. “The app store has been an economic miracle for developers in India and all around the world, and we’re thrilled to support their work,” Cook said as he commented on the billings and sales estimates for 2024, arrived at in a study conducted by IIM, Ahmedabad, professor Viswanath Pingali.
Cook further said, “This study underlines the power of India’s incredibly vibrant app economy. And we’re committed to keep investing in the success of developers of all sizes as they build apps that make an important impact and enrich people’s lives.”
Interestingly, more than 94% of billings and sales facilitated by the app store in India accrued solely to the developers, without any commission paid to Apple. Also, the global earnings of India-based developers tripled over the past five years through the engagement on the apps which are available across Apple’s markets.
On an average, more than 22 million users visited the India app store each week – double to what it was three years ago. Throughout the year, iOS users in India downloaded apps nearly 1.1 billion times, which is also almost double to what it was three years ago. A significant share of the app store ecosystem in India is driven by the local developer community: 38% of the downloads by users in India in 2024 were for apps developed by India-based developers.This represents a 27% increase in the share of local downloads compared to five years ago.
Talking about the global reach, the study shows that close to 80% of India-based developers’ app store earnings came from users outside of the country, and 87% of developers were active on multiple storefronts (countries).
“Throughout the same 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. Many apps from India-based developers have also appeared on the most-downloaded app charts in storefronts outside of India, and apps from India-based developers were in the top 100 most-downloaded apps in 70 storefronts outside of India.“
In the last five years, downloads by Indian users have more than tripled, and earnings from these users have increased more than five-fold, the study said.