Apps, 80/20.

I'd done it in a post here, but thought I'd redo the math with the latest numbers Apple gave.

Announced at WWDC today, 900,000 apps, with $10 Billion paid to developers.  That works out to $11,111 per app.  But I can tell you that not every app gets that!  Using the 80/20 rule, 20% of the apps would get 80% of the money.  That seems more likely.

So 180,000 apps share 8 Billion, for an average of $44,444 per app.  (With the sad other 720,000 sharing $2 Billion and making $2,777 for their average.  That seems more like it.)

Applying the 80/20 rule over and over, so at each level 20% of the apps get 80% of the money...
900,000 share $10,000,000,000 for $11,111 each
180,000 share $8,000,000,000 for $44,444 each
36,000 share $6,400,000,000 for $177,778 each
7,200 share $5,120,000,000 for $711,111 each
1,440 share $4,096,000,000 for $2,844,444 each
288 share $3,276,800,000 for $11,377,778 each
58 share $2,621,440,000 for $45,511,111 each
12 share $2,097,152,000 for $182,044,444 each

So you've got to be in about the top 0.8% of apps to start getting close to $1 million.  And the very top apps make a lot!  The top ~0.16% sharing 40% of the total App Store profits.


(And applying just once more on the lower side, the bottom 80% sharing the bottom 20%: 576,000 sharing $400 million, for $695 per app.  Which seems about right.)