First-time million-dollar apps on Play Store half that of Apple App Store -- again

A frequently-cited statistic is that the Apple App Store makes twice as much money as the Google Play Store, even though the Play Store is far larger and caters to far more customers.

It appears that dichotomy extends beyond just basic sales and into first-time successes as well. According to app intelligence firm Sensor Tower (via TechCrunch), the number of app publishers that had their first million-dollar success in 2018 is also halved on the Play Store as compared to the App store.

According to Sensor Tower, there were 88 publishers this year that made their first $1 million on the Google Play Store, while there were 164 such developers on the Apple App Store in the same time period.

These new numbers line up very nicely with last year’s numbers as well. Check out the chart below:

Although it appears that Apple will always have the lead when it comes to money earned from its app store, it should be noted that Google is making faster gains. The Apple App Store had 143 million-dollar developers last year, a number which grew by 15 percent this year. Meanwhile, the Google Play Store grew by 24 percent this year from its 71 million-dollar publishers in 2017. It’s not a huge difference, but it’s there, nonetheless.

Most of the publishers earning their first million this year created games, naturally. However, games are not dominating the list as much in 2018 as in 2017, as apps in the Lifestyle and Health categories made some big gains.

Regardless of these numbers, both app stores are doing better than ever.  The two stores hit 113 billion combined downloads this year, with $76 billion in spending — and the year isn’t even fully done yet.

NEXT: Give back with charitable donations on the Google Play Store