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That's the claim made by analyst Horace Dediu, who's compared figures from the two industries. He's pointed out that the amount paid out to iOS app developers 2014 - over $10 billion - now exceeds the amount taken by Hollywood at the box office.
Of course, there are additional streams of revenue for Hollywood beyond the US domestic box office. But Apple's App Store "is not the complete revenue picture either." There's Android, for a start. There's also "ads and services and custom development." Once you factor all those in, Dediu expects that the app economy will still be larger than the movie business.
The app industry is outstripping other digitally distributed content too. It's a bigger business than TV programs, movie rentals and purchases put together.
Take a look at the graph:
The app industry isn't just beating the movie industry, it's also growing far faster. As the graph below indicates, it's on an upwards trajectory that doesn't look likely to plateau any time soon.
It bucks conventional wisdom, because as Dediu points out, "comprehension of the phenomenon is lagging." People simply aren't aware of how huge apps are, and how much they're growing.
One more interesting fact: The app economy also produces more jobs in the US than Hollywood - 627,000 for iOS alone, compared to 374,000.