Customers spend $540 million in the App Store on New Year’s Day

By

Apple services
Services are big business for Apple.
Photo: Apple

Apple customers spent a record $540 million-plus in a single day on digital goods and services on New Year’s Day, Apple said Wednesday.

This followed a monster holiday season in which App Store customers splurged $1.8 billion in the App Store between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. Users spent much of this astonishing amount of money on games.

Apple revealed the tidbits in a press release titled “Apple services entertain, inform, and connect the world in unprecedented year.”

It runs down the various Apple services — from Apple TV+ to Apple Arcade — and talks up the features they offer. Other highlights include:

  • Engagement with Apple Music’s lyrics feature doubled in 2020. Apple introduced the feature in mid-2019. It reportedly has a team of people whose job is to listen to lyrics and transcribe them.
  • Apple TV+ is now “available on over 1 billion screens in over 100 countries and regions.” It has received 159 awards nominations and 45 wins and accolades to date. These range from a Primetime Emmy Award to a Peabody Award, Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, and more.
  • Apple Pay is and now available in more than 90% of stores in the United States, 85% in the United Kingdom and 99% in Australia.
  • Apple Books saw “remarkable growth in new customers” over 2020. It currently has more than 90 million monthly active users.

Services is a big push for Tim Cook

Services got a big push under Apple CEO Tim Cook’s leadership. To date, iCloud subscriptions and Apple Music have been the big successes. However, Apple continues to launch new services, such as Apple Arcade, Apple News+ and Apple TV+. Apple has yet to publish subscriber figures showing how all of these are doing.

The company’s recently launched Apple One bundles let people subscribe to multiple services at a discount rate.

Which Apple services do you subscribe to? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: Apple

Newsletters

Daily round-ups or a weekly refresher, straight from Cult of Mac to your inbox.

  • The Weekender

    The week's best Apple news, reviews and how-tos from Cult of Mac, every Saturday morning. Our readers say: "Thank you guys for always posting cool stuff" -- Vaughn Nevins. "Very informative" -- Kenly Xavier.