The App Store Minted Hundreds of New Millionaires in 2024
This is a single insight from This Week in Apps - Minting Millionaires. Check out the full article for more insights.
People asked me if I think there's still money in apps all the time. I can do better than share my opinion - I have the data to answer the question definitively.
I can show you how app revenue rose in 2024, or how the top apps are crushing it, but instead, I'm going to do something better.
Using Explorer, I discovered all apps and games that were released in 2024 and ended the year with more than $1M in gross revenue. That's enough to get you kicked out of Apple's Small Business Program.
Can you guess how many apps managed to do that (without looking below)?
According to our App Intelligence, 442 apps and games that were released in 2024 ended the year with $1M or more of gross revenue. To put that intp perspective, only 5,059 apps and games earned that much in 2024. This new batch made up 9% of those.
You might be thinking, like me, that it's all games. And you won't be completely wrong but you also won't be right either.
Our data shows that 20% of the new batch of millionaires were apps while 80% were games. I expected apps to be lower, but subscriptions and the overall rising revenue trend in the App Store are even stronger than I expected.
Short drama apps and AI dominated the list on the apps side. We estimate that together, the new batch of millionaires brought in $117M in gross revenue (before store fees) from the App Store in 2024 for an average of $1.3M per app.
Games scored much more though. Our App Intelligence shows the new millionaires brough in $4.8B of gross revenue in 2024. Wow!
More than half of the new millionaires were role playing games (55%). Casual and adventure games tied for second with a 20% share each, with strategy and action rounding out the top 5.
So yes, there's still money to be made with apps and games on the App Store in 2025, but make sure you're building the right thing. We've got something to help with that coming soon.
App Intelligence for Everyone!
The insights in this report come right out of our App Intelligence platform, which offers access to download and revenue estimates, installed SDKs, and more! Learn more about the tools or schedule a demo with our team to get started.
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All figures included in this report are estimated. Unless specified otherwise, estimated revenue is always net, meaning it's the amount the developer earned after Apple and Google took their fee.
