Apple Kicks Off 2017 With News Of 'Blowout' App Store Sales

Happy New Year's, Apple Inc. AAPL shareholders. In the company’s first news release of 2017, Apple revealed that it generated $78 million in App Store sales per day in 2016. New Year's Day App Store sales came in at $240 million, a number Loup Ventures analyst Gene Munster calls “a blowout day.”

“Given the significance of the App Store to Apple’s Services business coupled with today’s announcement, we believe our previous expectation of 15 percent y/y Services revenue growth in 2017 is conservative,” Munster added. Loup has now upped its projection from +15 percent to +20 percent.

Sign Of Future Success

Munster believes the impressive App Store growth is a sign that Apple’s long-term transition from a hardware company to a services company is right on track. In the most recent quarter, Apple’s services segment accounted for 13 percent of its total revenue. Munster believes that number can grow to 30 percent within five years. He also expects services to account for most or all of Apple’s overall growth during that time, while hardware sales remain mostly flat.

Apple shares were up 9.9 percent in 2016 and are up another 0.6 percent so far in 2017. The highly-anticipated iPhone 8 release expected this year will come on the 10-year anniversary of the original iPhone back in 2007.