It’s not just U.S. developers who are hitting it rich thanks to the App Store. According to new figures released by Apple, it has now paid out $25 billion through the App Store to European developers.

Last June, Apple reported having paid out more than $20 billion. Almost an extra $5 billon in seven months is pretty darn impressive — working out at upward of $70 million per month.

A statement given to Macerkopof by Apple’s VP of Apple Music and International Content, Oliver Schusser, reads as follows: (Allow for Google Translate errors)

"Our services, which include content stores, Apple Pay, and iCloud Storage, are targeting $40 billion in annual sales. In January, we announced that developer revenue in the App Store reached $120 billion. Payments to European developers have just exceeded $ 25 billion.”

This doesn’t mean that all developers are getting wealthy, of course. Competition is fiercer than ever in the App Store, which now has around 2 million apps. Those numbers also aren’t likely to trend downward any time soon, as Apple continues pushing the importance of learning Swift. In Europe, it has worked hard to promote its coding curriculum to students and other interested parties.

Nonetheless, it’s an impressive reminder of just how many jobs the App Store has helped to create. Apple typically takes a 30 percent cut of apps, while devs keep the remaining 70 percent. Apple’s cut covers the cost of proxy servers and data centers for distributing apps. It also covers the Digital Rights Management fees involved — along with Apple’s sizable profits.

Source: cultofmac