In Europe, corporations like Apple should be put in their place. At the same time, the iPhone manufacturer points to the importance of the app economy.
In Germany, more and more jobs depend on Apple’s App Store. According to a study by a market research company, more than 400,000 jobs in the areas of software development, sales, design and other areas of work are directly related to the app store.
Compared to 2020, the number of jobs has increased by eleven percent, according to the study by the Progressive Policy Institute. The growth figures from Europe are slightly below the values from Germany. Here the market researchers registered an increase of seven percent to 2.2 million jobs. The study was commissioned by Apple.
The growth of the app economy in the Apple environment is mainly due to the success of smaller software developers. In terms of sales growth, they are now trailing the large software companies. This emerges from a second study by the US economic consulting firm Analysis Group, which was commissioned by Apple. In this segment, sales have increased by 113 percent over the past two years. The growth rate exceeded the value of the large development companies by more than twice.
Competition for Apple?
Small software developers are companies with annual sales of up to one million US dollars and fewer than one million downloads per year. However, smaller developers from Germany benefited below average from the revenue increases. While the sales of smaller developer companies in France increased by 122 percent in the period 2019 to 2021 and by 118 percent in the USA, the increase in Germany was 75 percent.
Apple’s reference to the economic importance comes against the background of the forthcoming European law on digital markets (Digital Markets Act, DMA). The DMA is currently being negotiated in the so-called trilogue between the EU Parliament and the Council. The EU Parliament and the European states had already agreed on the principles at the end of March. After that, “gatekeepers” like Apple can be forced to also allow alternative app stores.
The DMA draft also stipulates that iPhone users must be able to install apps directly from the Internet. Apple sees this as a threat to users. Apple CEO Tim Cook said the move would allow malicious actors to bypass Apple’s comprehensive security measures.
