When the App Store first launched last year, there was a lot of uncertainty around just how much it could viably contribute to Apple’s bottom line. Many said the offering would just be a minor blip on the revenue sheet — but now it appears it may be set to become a significant revenue driver.

Take for example Tapulous. The creators of “Tap Tap Revenge” among other titles now says the App Store is responsible for $1 million in sales per month, Reuters is reporting. This is a staggering figure for a company that only has 20 employees, and makes its entire living off of creating iPhone/iPod touch applications.

An estimated one-third of all App Store users had installed TTR, according to comScore research released earlier in the year.

How much is Apple making off of merely hosting Tapulous’ wildly successful applications? Using the 70/30 revenue split, Cupertino is raking in a cool $400,000 plus a month. That’s not only profitable to Tapulous, but also to Apple, whose hosting costs for the App Store for those applications are definitely nowhere near that.

Tapulous is also making some Apple-fee free revenue too. Although it won’t give specific numbers, the company has additional revenue streams through selling songs for its games, and in-game advertising.

We should be fair here though. This company’s success is probably the exception rather than the norm — there are about 100,000 apps in the store produced by thousands, if not tens of thousands of developers. It’s very tough these days in the App Store to compete and make a large amount of money, but Tapulous is quickly proving that its quite possible to do very well with the right application.

 
2 Comments


Read more: App Store, Tapulous