The 2022 App Store Transparency Report is the result of a settlement between Apple and the App Store developers in 2021. The report is an effort to “share meaningful statistics about the app review process, including the number of apps rejected for different reasons, the number of customer and developer accounts deactivated, objective data regarding search queries and results, and the number of apps removed from the App Store.”
The App Store Transparency report has opened our eyes to some astonishing statistics about the submission and rejection of apps on the App Store. The report is based on data from 2022 and according to the publishers, they’ll be putting out this report annually. Now, let us look at some of the data revealed in the report.
In 2022, there were 6,101,913 app submissions on the App Store of which 1,679,694 were rejected on various grounds. Performance issues were responsible for the rejection of a vast majority of the apps (1,018,415), followed by legal reasons (441,972), and design (212,464). Other grounds included safety, business, etc. Collectively, these grounds are part of the App Store Review Guidelines. Noncompliance with these guidelines result in the rejection of apps.
Rejections aside, App Store also removed 186,195 apps including 38,883 games and 20,045 utility apps. The list of removed apps also included education, lifestyle, and shopping app in thousands. The removals took place owing to two main reasons. One is government takedown demands and two is non-compliance with the Developer Program Licensing Agreement. The Chinese government alone mandated the removal of 1435 apps followed by a distant second, India which removed 14 apps.
The number of apps currently on App Store is 1,783,232. There are 36,974,015 registered developers and 428,487 developers accounts were terminated in 2022. Notably, Apple also terminated 282,036,628 customer accounts preventing the loss of $2,090,195,480 in fraudulent activities.
