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Comment by mrweasel | Hacker News Reader

How on earth is Apple doing $1.3 trillion in billings on the App Store?

My kid asked if we could buy an iPad game last week, that was like $12. I can't remember when I last bought something in the App Store (iPhone or macOS) beyond that. Some people would have to buy insane amounts of stuff. Are they counting their own subscription products as well, like AppleTV og iCloud?

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I believe it's game "whales" who spend thousands on in game purchases.

Also a steady stream of people that unknowingly have subscriptions. If you have older parents or grand parents, show them the subscriptions screen in the app store from time to time.

They're talking about "facilitated by the App Store ecosystem" so it includes everything from online shopping to advertising. 1 billion iPhone users spending/generating on average $1000 on their phones per year? Seems reasonable. I think even if you just consider Amazon, the Amazons of elsewhere, supermarkets etc, Ali, it goes on and on. Their combined revenue from people buying stuff on their iPhones, iPads, Mac apps downloaded through the app store will get you a great length towards $1.3 trillion.

People are not spending $1.3 trillion per year on IAPs, it's not the game whales as the other comment suggests.

People spend a truely stupendous amount on in-app purchases a dollar or two (or fifty) at a time. A friend's easily spent a couple hundred on Monopoly over the course of a year.

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