“Since we know something about the average price of songs and apps, and we know the split between developers and Apple (and roughly between music labels and Apple) we can get a rough estimate of the amount Apple retains to run its store,” Horace Dediu writes for asymco.
“If we add the content margins from music and apps and assume the store runs at break even we can get an idea of what it costs to operate the store. The latest number is $113 million per month (from a total income of $313 million/mo.),” Dediu writes. “It implies over $1.3 billion per year.”
Dediu writes, “Much of that cost does go into serving the content (traffic and payment processing). Some of it goes to curation and support. But it’s very likely that there is much left over to be invested in capacity increases.”
Read more in the full article, which includes the usual excellent charts, here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Sarah” and “Lava_Head_UK” for the heads up.]