Apple services break revenue records, enter 2021 stronger than ever

The post is quite long, so we'll give you a short summary of the interesting parts, skipping the fluff about how life-changing Apple's software products are.

Apple isn't sharing exact numbers regarding revenue from services for the whole year (or past quarter) just yet. We'll probably have to wait for the next quarterly investors' call for that. However, there are a couple of numbers in the press release that give us a pretty good idea of how profitable Apple services are. During the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve, Apple users spent $1.8 billion on digital goods and services provided by the App Store. Of course, that includes purchases made from third-party apps from which Apple takes its notorious 30% cut. Apple notes that the cash stream was "driven largely by spending on games", clearly showing that the mobile gaming industry's growth is far from its peak.

Perhaps more shocking is the second number. $540 million spent on New Year's day alone, a record for Apple. Now that's what we call a good start of the year. No doubt a big part of that sum was also spent on virtual in-game currencies.

2020 saw the release of a brand-new Apple service, the workout focused Fitness+. With it Apple covers yet another popular activity, making its Apple Watch more useful and adding another revenue stream in the process. 

Apple Pay is becoming more popular than ever as the company shares that 90% of stores in the US accept it as a payment method. The record-holder in that category is Australia where Apple says 99% of stores accept Apple Pay, while in the UK that percentage is 85%. 

Once again, Apple services prove why they deserve to be a major focus of the company's attention and are perhaps the key to Apple's long-term dominance in the market.