App Store: Apple publishes its first transparency report with several data

Apple has released its very first transparency report concerning the App Store. This follows an agreement with developers in 2021. The idea is to be transparent and make public several data related to the application store.

A report on the App Store with several information

The first App Store Transparency Report is for the full year 2022. Apple will release one per year from now on. Here is the data:

• Number of apps on the App Store: 1,783,232
• Application requests rejected: 1,679,694
  • Security (92,598)
  • Performance (1,018,415)
  • Businesses (152,391)
  • Design (212,464)
  • Legal (441,972)
  • Others (79,736)
• App requests approved after rejection: 253,466
• Apps removed from the App Store: 186,195
• Apps removed from the App Store by category:
  • Games (38,883)
  • Utilities (20,045)
  • Business (16,997)
  • Education (16,509)
  • Lifestyle (15,171)
  • Entertainment (11,757)
  • Food and drink (8,317)
  • Productivity (7,314)
  • Travel (5,510)
  • Shopping (5,376)
• Apps removed from the App Store due to violation of the guidelines or the Developer Program License Agreement (DPLA):
  • 1. Guideline 4.0 – Design: 149,378
  • 2. DPLA 3.2(f) – Fraud: 32,009
  • 3. Guideline 5.6.0 – Developer Code of Conduct: 1272
  • 4. DPLA 6.3 – Intellectual Property Infringement: 920
  • 5. Guideline 4.3.0 – Spam: 685
  • 6. DPLA 14.8 – Export Control: 332
  • 7. Guideline 4.1.0 – Copiers: 211
  • 8. Guideline 5.0.0 – Legal: 196
  • 9. DPLA 11.1 – Apple Developer Program Membership Expired: 185
  • 10. Guideline 2.1.0 – Application completeness: 92
• Apps removed from the App Store subject to government takedown requests:
  • China: 1,435
  • India: 14
  • Pakistan: 10
  • Russia: 7
  • Türkiye: 2
  • Bulgaria: 1
  • Cyprus: 1
  • Hong Kong: 1
  • Italy: 1
  • Latvia: 1
  • Nigeria: 1
• Remedies against app deletions:
  • China: 5,484
  • United States: 3,157
  • UK: 817
  • India: 709
  • Hong Kong: 465
  • Viet Nam: 416
  • Japan: 411
  • Brazil: 376
  • Türkiye: 368
  • South Korea: 358
• Returns on the App Store after appeals against app deletions:
  • China: 169
  • United States: 129
  • UK: 36
  • India: 24
  • Türkiye: 14
  • Germany: 13
  • France: 13
  • Canada: 12
  • Hong Kong: 12
  • Brazil: 11
  • vietnam 11

Additional data

Some additional details are shared. In China, for example, Apple reports that 1,276 games were removed because they did not have the GRN license required by law. Regarding app rejections because of design, Apple clarifies that these are guidelines prohibiting copied apps, apps with minimal functionality, and spam.

We also learn that the App Store has 36,974,015 registered developers. 428,487 accounts were deleted, including 428,249 for fraud. Also, 282,036,628 user accounts were deleted.

There were an average of 656,739,889 visitors to the App Store each week, with 747,873,877 downloads and 1,539,274,266 downloads of previously downloaded apps. Additionally, there were an average of 40,876,798,492 app updates automatically installed each week and 512,545,816 manually applied updates.