What you need to know
- Alphabet, Google's parent company, announced its Q4 2019 earnings on February 3, 2020.
- Google has paid out more than $80 billion to Google Play developers to date.
- That puts Play Store developers far behind the $155 billion Apple has paid out to App Store developers as of January 2020.
On February 3, 2020, Google's parent company Alphabet released its earnings results for Q4 of 2019. Among those earnings, we learned for the first time how much YouTube is bringing in for Alphabet, turns out that's a whopping $15.1 billion in 2019 alone. To put that in perspective, that's around 10% of Google's overall revenue.
Besides disclosing YouTube earnings, we also learned that Google has paid out more than $80 billion to Google Play developers to date. Google senior vice president Hiroshi Lockheimer tweeted out the news yesterday, along with a huge thank you to developers.
Today, @sundarpichai shared that developers around the world (excl. China) have earned more than $80 billion to date on @GooglePlay. Our platform can’t succeed without the help of our developer ecosystem, so a huge thank you for all you do!Today, @sundarpichai shared that developers around the world (excl. China) have earned more than $80 billion to date on @GooglePlay. Our platform can’t succeed without the help of our developer ecosystem, so a huge thank you for all you do!— Hiroshi Lockheimer (@lockheimer) February 4, 2020February 4, 2020
Rightfully so, because without developers a platform cannot survive, just ask Microsoft about Windows Mobile. Unfortunately, as much as $80 billion sounds like a significant amount, it still places Android developers far behind their iOS brethren. According to Apple, as of January 2020, it has paid out $155 billion to App Store developers.
It's no surprise that Apple's platform is more lucrative to develop for; however, it's still a rather large disparity given that Android is the most widely used mobile platform in the world. Regardless, we should all be happy that $80 billion made its way into developer's hands, keeping our favorite ecosystem alive and kicking. It's also a good reminder to support your favorite developers and buy their apps if you really enjoy them.
