Apple users spent $1.22 bn on App Store in one holiday week

San Francisco:  Customers globally spent $1.22 billion on Apple App Store in the 2018 holiday season, making a single-day record with purchases worth $322 million on New Year's Day alone.

App Store spending topped $1.22 billion between Christmas eve and New Year's eve, Apple said in a statement late on Thursday.

"The holiday week was our biggest week ever with more than $1.22 billion spent on apps and games, and New Year's Day set a new single-day record at more than $322 million," said Phil Schiller, Apple's Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing.

"Thanks to the inspiring work of our talented developers and the support of our incredible customers around the world, the App Store finished off an outstanding 2018 and kicked off 2019 with a bang," he added.

Earlier this week, Apple announced that the App Store helped drive Services revenue to an all-time record in the holiday quarter.

Apple services set new all-time records in multiple categories, including the App Store, Apple Music, Cloud Services, Apple Pay, and the App Store's search ad business.

"Gaming and self-care were the most popular categories of app downloads and subscriptions during the holidays," said the company.

Globally, multiplayer games including Fortnite and PUBG were among the top downloaded games over the holidays, along with Brawl Stars, Asphalt 9 and Monster Strike.

In a letter to investors on January 2, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the company now expects revenue of approximately $84 billion, down from the $89 to $93 billion it had previously projected.

The revenue outside of the iPhone business grew by almost 19 per cent year-over-year, including all-time record revenue from Services, Wearables and Mac.

"Services generated over $10.8 billion in revenue during the quarter, growing to a new quarterly record in every geographic segment," said Cook.

Apple will report the next quarter results on January 29.