Apple App Store sales exceed $20bn in 2015 with record-breaking Christmas season

Apple reports record-breaking App Store sales during the 2015 Christmas season, with users across the globe spending $1.1bn (£752m) alone in the two weeks ended on 3 January.

New Year's day (1 January 2016) marked the biggest day for the App Store with customers spending more than $144m (£99m), which broke a record set a week earlier on Christmas Day 2015.

The popular apps for the year were gaming, social networking and entertainment. Minecraft: Pocket Edition, Trivia Crack, Heads Up, Facebook Messenger, WeChat and Snapchat are a few of them. Subscription apps that topped the list are Clash of Clans, Monster Strike, Game of War - Fire Age and Fantasy Westward Journey, as well as Netflix, Hulu and Match.

Apple says the launch of Apple TV and Apple Watch played major role in the record App Store sales. Rayman Adventures, Beat Sports and HBO Now are a few of the most popular Apple TV apps since they was launch in October 2015. As for Apple Watch, the most popular apps were fitness apps such as Nike+ Running, Lifesum, iTranslate and Citymapper.

Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing said, "The App Store had a holiday season for the record books. We are excited that our customers downloaded and enjoyed so many incredible apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV, spending over $20bn on the App Store last year alone. We're grateful to all the developers who have created the most innovative and exciting apps in the world for our customers. We can't wait for what's to come in 2016."

With the huge success of App Store sales, Apple claims to have created 1.9 billion jobs in the US alone. The company has earlier reported that the iOS app economy has created 1.2 million jobs in Europe , and 1.4 million in China.