Hungover people drive most successful App Store day ever

Apple’s App Store just had it best day, ever. On New Years Day, a hungover world bought a (frankly ludicrous) $240 million of games, apps, and iMessage stickers packs, with 70 percent of that going straight to developers.

Just in case you were curious, that’s just $56 million shy of the annual GDP of the Pacific island nation of Palau.

There are no prizes for guessing what was the most downloaded app – it was Super Mario Run. Nintendo’s first foray into the world of mobile gaming has been downloaded 90 million times, with almost 3 million stumping up the $9.99 to unlock all the game content.

Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing said “2016 was a record-shattering year for the App Store, generating $20 billion for developers, and 2017 is off to a great start with January 1 as the single biggest day ever on the App Store.”

It’s hardly a surprise why New Years Day was such a huge success for Apple . For most people, it was a Sunday, and a day off from work. I imagine a great many people were feeling a little bit tender as a consequence of the previous night’s overindulgence, and weren’t up for much except playing on their phones. It’s probable many got iTunes gift cards as part of their Christmas haul, too.

Either way, it’s a great start to 2017 for Apple, and follows their best 2016 ever, which saw App Store sales soar by a staggering 40 percent.