Right before Google announced a way to get a portion of its money back from app and game developers through Google Play, the company stated it paid out over $7 billion to publishers in 2014. With over 1 billion Android devices activated across 190 countries, Google Play continues to be a great means of distribution for any developer’s hard work.
Google states it is as committed as ever to maintaining the Play Store as the best place to find great apps, games, and entertainment. And with that, they introduced sponsored app listings, which only makes sense at this point.
Sort of related, but indirectly, Google I/O should be quite an interesting conference this year. It was reported yesterday that Google would unveil a new Android Pay API, allowing any app and game developer to build in a single-tap payment service connected to a user’s credit or debit card. This could ultimately lead to even more revenue for developers, making Google Play an even better place to publish apps.
Regardless of what the future may bring, congrats to developers who are creating the apps and games we all enjoy. Now, just give me Tiny Wings already.




We need better games and better options…I heard that devs can’t put a price and then make it free for a promo (a day or 2) cause that would make it free forever! Thats stupid!
We need games bundles, we need better support!
so $10 billion in play store sales which doesn’t include Play music and device sales. closing on Apple about 4 billion more to go
Is there any web or smartphone model not based on advertising? I would just rather pay directly for things. Am I going to have to ditch my smartphone, use linux and live in a cave?
Seems like it, yup.
Have you seen the movie Minority Report? That is where we are headed.
Yea video ads on cereal boxes and ads in our dreams lol!
Did they mention the $3B they kept to themselves?
It’s a 70-30 split, isn’t it?
Google needs to dramatically improve its developer relations. The fact that innocent apps routinely get bumped for dubious ToS violations and Google is unwilling to spend efforts to respond in a timely manner to appeals is quite damning.
without DL to advertise them and call them hot, we wouldnt be able to get anywhere near that figure. /s
I thought that was a lifetime stat?
Nope:
From the Google Link:
In fact, in the past year, we paid more than $7 billion to developers distributing apps and games on Google Play
Crazy money!