Apple rings in 2015 with record-breaking App Store sales.

Apple announced today that the first week of January 2015 has set some new records in App Store sales. Customers spent nearly half a billion dollars on apps and in-app purchases. Plus, New Year’s Day 2015 marked the single biggest day in App Store sales history…ever!

“This year is off to a tremendous start after a record-breaking year for the App Store and our developer community,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “We’re so proud of the creativity and innovation developers bring to the apps they create for iOS users and that the developer community has now earned over $25 billion.”

These milestones also follow a record-breaking 2014 where sales rose 50% and apps generated over $10 billion in revenue for developers. The introduction of iOS 8, the most significant iOS update ever, gave developers the ability to create amazing new apps and offers innovative features which proved wildly popular with App Store customers around the world.

Apple is not the only one to benefit from the windfall of positive sales. Developers of all sizes are reporting monumental success as well.

“We could never have dreamed of this level of success, with Crossy Road only being available on the App Store for the last six weeks of the year,” said Matthew Hall, co-founder of Hipster Whale. “In a couple of months we were able to create a simple, fun game that was featured on the App Store and climbed to the top of the App Store charts around the world—it’s amazing.”

Apple fueled iOS 8 developers’ innovation in 2014 by featuring Swift, a powerful new programming language that makes it easier for developers to create great apps. TestFlight was another great release from Apple. This developer tool allows for beta testing pre-release apps.  iOS 8 also introduced developers to Metal, a graphics technology created to maximize the performance of the A7 and A8 chips, which is being embraced by major game developers around the world.

HealthKit and HomeKit were also introduced in 2014, which allowed developers to create apps that work more closely together. HealthKit lets health and fitness developers share data with the Health app while HomeKit is a framework allowing developers to create software that discovers, configures, communicates with and controls devices for home automation.

Apple has also seen early success with Apple Pay, Apple’s mobile pay solution for users with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models.

“The response we’ve seen from HotelTonight customers since the introduction of Apple Pay has been fantastic,” said Sam Shank, CEO, HotelTonight. “Our current customer base is enjoying the convenience of Apple Pay and we’re continuing to see a growing number of new customers because of Apple Pay’s easy and secure approach to payments.”

Since its October release, purchases made with Apple Pay represent approximately 90% of credit card purchase volume at U.S. Leading merchants including Bloomingdale’s, Disney Store, Duane Reade and Walgreens. More banks and credit unions continue to add support for Apple Pay. For a full list of supporting retailers and banks that have partnered with Apple Pay, visit apple.com/apple-pay.

Another very impressive statistic is Apple’s contribution to the (RED) movement. Apple donated a record-shattering $20 million this quarter, and since partnering with (RED) has donated over $100 million. This was in part funded by the special Apps for (RED) initiative that provided exclusive content during the holiday season where all the proceeds went to the Global Fund to fight AIDS.

In addition to earning revenue, Apple has also been creating jobs. In the 6 years since the App Store launched, the iOS ecosystem has helped create and estimate 627,000 jobs in the U.S. alone. For more detailed information on Apple’s impact, visit apple.com/about/job-creation.