Apple Music vice president Oliver Schusser talked with German blog Macerkopf this week, and during the conversation he revealed the App Store has paid out over $25 billion to European developers since the Store opened in 2008.
Schusser’s full remarks in English (Via MacRumors):
Our services division which includes the content stores, Apple Pay and iCloudstorage is on target to be a $40 billion business annually. In January we announced developer earnings on the App Store have reached $120 billion. Payments to European developers have just passed $25 billion.
Apple Music now has 50 million paid users around the world since launching just under 4 years ago. We’re the the #1 music streaming service in the US and the leading music service globally on iPhone.
Our customers love the amazing content, whether it’s through playlists, Radio, Beats 1, or suggestions in For You. Apple Music was the first place to hear great new music from Nicki Minaj, The Weeknd and Frank Ocean to name a few last year. Beats 1 also hosts exclusive and popular artist-led shows from Drake, Nicki Minaj, Ezra Koenig, Lars Ulrich and Elton John.
The final update I’d like to share today is around podcasting where our customers have downloaded and streamed over 50 billion episodes of 650,000 active shows on Apple Podcasts.