Apple this week announced that App Store customers worldwide set a new spending record, capping off a record-breaking year for the tech giant. Customers spent some $1.22 billion during the 2018 holiday period, with over $322 million of that being spent on New Year’s Day alone, setting a new single-day record.
Of the record-breaking feat, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller said:
“Thanks to the inspiring work of our talented developers and the support of our incredible customers around the world, the App Store finished off an outstanding 2018 and kicked off 2019 with a bang.”
App Store spending wasn’t the only record-breaker as the $1.22 billion expenditure helped to drive Apple services revenue to an all-time record for the holiday quarter. This meant new records for Apple Music, Apple Pay, Cloud Services and the App Store’s search ad business.
The most popular categories of app downloads included gaming and self-care with multiplayer games such as Fortnite coming top. PUBG, Monster Strike, Brawl Stars and Asphalt 9 were also widely downloaded.
As well as this, Education, Health & Fitness and Productivity apps proved popular in the first few days of the year with the likes of Lumosity, Sweat and 1Password attracting many downloads.
