Apple is definitely not a gaming company, but they have huge profits from gaming. Even greater than the combined profits of several major game companies.
This information is an analysis written by the Wall Street Journal, which mentions that Apple's gaming profits reached USD 8.5 billion during the 2019 fiscal year. These profits combined Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Activision Blizzard's gaming profits in the same year.
According to the WSJ, the figure is USD 2 billion more than the combined profits of the 4 companies. It's just that the WSJ takes Activision Blizzard, Nintendo and Sony profit data from official financial documents, while Microsoft's data comes from analyst estimates.
This huge income comes from the 30% discount they charge on every transaction in the App Store. This analysis was also included in the trial between Apple and Epic.
Apple called the analysis incorrect and far higher than the reality. According to them, this figure does not include actual expenditure items.
But according to Sensor Tower analysis, Apple earned $15.9 billion in revenue from the App Store in 2019, and 69% of it came from games. Using data disclosed in court, the App Store earned an operating profit of $12.3 billion that year, or one-fifth of Apple's overall operating profit.
In the verdict in Apple's lawsuit against Epic, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers said Apple did enjoy a market share advantage of over 55% and earned a very high profit margin.
However, Epic can't prove that Apple is practicing an illegal monopoly there. Epic then decided to appeal the decision.
