alt Hacker NewsServices revenue is mostly just 30% from App Store Sales. This means every time a user clicks a pro account for ChatGPT or Claude on their phone, Apple makes more money than they could make with a self deployed model.
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mdorazio • last Monday at 1:17 PM
Not true. App Store is less than 1/3 of services revenue.
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You're not wrong that they collect a ton of rent off AI apps, rumours a few weeks back claimed $900m in fees last year with 75% of that just from OpenAI.
But services revenue is:
- their 36% share of Google Ads for being default search engine, about $21 billion/year of pure profit
- their IAP fees, court testimony reveals 75% profit margin
- their first-party subscriptions, there's an antitrust about iCloud that alleges 52% of iPhone users are on paid plans and that the profit margins are 80-ish percent!
https://9to5mac.com/2026/03/19/report-apple-made-roughly-900...