Apple just put a number on its empire: $1.4 trillion in developer billings and sales flowed through the App Store in 2025. That’s up from $1.3 trillion a year earlier, according to TechCrunch AI, which covered Apple’s annual ecosystem update released Thursday ahead of next week’s Worldwide Developers Conference. The headline Apple wants you to notice: 90% of that $1.4 trillion came from transactions where developers paid no commission at all.
The timing isn’t an accident. Apple drops these figures right before WWDC every year, and this round carries an extra signal about where the company sees growth coming from. More on that below.
What the numbers actually say
Apple broke the $1.4 trillion into clear buckets:
- $1.1 trillion in sales of physical goods and services (retail, grocery delivery, ride-hailing, travel)
- $149 billion in billings and sales for digital goods, up from $131 billion last year
- $151 billion in in-app advertising revenue, barely up from $150 billion
The digital goods slice is the one that matters to Apple’s bottom line. That’s where the company takes its cut, commissioning transactions at 15% to 30% depending on the deal and the size of the business. Everything else, the physical goods and services that make up the bulk of the total, Apple touches for free.
That framing is deliberate. By spotlighting the $1.4 trillion and the 90% commission-free figure, Apple is making an argument it’s been forced to make a lot lately: that it takes a small piece of a huge pie. With regulators in the U.S. and Europe circling its fee structure, and developers loudly disputing what those fees buy them, the messaging is as much legal defense as marketing.
Still, $149 billion in commissionable digital sales is a massive market, and Apple’s share of it runs into the tens of billions. No amount of pie-chart framing changes that.
Why AI apps are suddenly the story
Here’s the part worth paying attention to. Apple called out AI apps specifically, noting that 40 of the top 100 apps in 2025 had consumer-facing AI features, and those apps saw stronger billing growth than the rest of the top 100.
Apple rarely volunteers a stat like that without a reason. TechCrunch AI reads it as Apple setting the stage for a WWDC announcement about allowing AI agents on the App Store, something that’s been rumored for a while. Pair that with Apple’s own AI plans, an anticipated Siri revamp and deeper AI hooks across its operating systems, and the ecosystem update starts looking like a teaser.
What stands out here is the strategic shift. Apple has spent the last two years looking like the slow mover in consumer AI while OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic raced ahead. Now it’s pointing to AI apps as its fastest-growing category and hinting it wants agents living inside its store. That’s a company trying to reposition itself as the distribution layer for AI, not the laggard.
The global picture
Apple also reported the App Store hit over 850 million average weekly users across 175 countries in 2025. Growth wasn’t evenly spread:
- China: billings and sales more than doubled over the last six years
- U.S. and Europe: more than tripled in the same window
Most of that, again, traces back to physical goods and services, not digital purchases. The App Store has quietly become plumbing for retail, delivery, and travel commerce, not just a place to buy games and subscriptions.
What to watch at WWDC
For developers and anyone building in the AI space, the read is straightforward. If Apple opens the App Store to AI agents, it creates a new distribution channel for a category that’s already outgrowing everything around it. That’s a real opportunity, and a fresh set of rules to learn, including whatever commission terms Apple decides apply to agents.
Keep an eye on the Siri revamp and the agent policy when WWDC opens next week. Apple just told us where it thinks the money is going. Now it has to show what it’s building to capture it. Full details are available at the original TechCrunch AI report.