Yet despite this, more Apple users have been infected with malware (Xcodeghost) than users of Amazon and Google Android devices combined, despite there being far more Amazon and Google Android users than Apple users.
https://www.androidcentral.com/nearly-impossible-remove-andr...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2019/07/10/25-mi...
https://in.pcmag.com/security/138196/android-users-need-to-m...
https://www.foolproofme.org/articles/169-over-1-million-andr...
https://phys.org/news/2019-07-malicious-apps-infect-million-...
And this is just five articles I found from a superficial search.
Now don't get me wrong. I absolutely abhor the Apple's App Store and their overzealous security policies, but they work. I just don't think they're necessary to keep our devices safe.
The first one infected a few thousand. The second one spread on Chinese phones, not Google or Amazon phones. The third infected about 120k users. The fourth infected 1 million users. The fifth infected 10 million users.
So the Apple App Store infected at least an order of magnitude more users despite having an order of magnitude fewer users total. Why at least? Apple does not allow third party security apps on its devices, so there are likely to be way more infections that we just haven't heard of.