US consumer spending on Apple’s App Store fell year-on-year in Q2 2026, according to Sensor Tower estimates – the first decline in the decade the company has tracked the data.
As reported by the Financial Times, the estimates suggest US consumer spending through the App Store fell 6% in the second quarter, compared to 9% growth a year earlier.
Sensor Tower largely attributed the drop to Apple’s ongoing legal fight with Epic Games, which forced the tech giant to allow developers to direct players to external payment links without taking its typical 30% commission. The App Store had been “significantly impacted” by the ruling, said the firm.
The FT also cites Appfigures estimates that suggest Apple’s US commission revenue has contracted 18% this year, and that Apple is taking less revenue in Brazil and Japan after being forced to open its stores in those markets, too.
Epic’s Tim Sweeney seized on the figures, arguing on X that “Apple broke mobile gaming” with its “30% junk fees”.
These have inflated the price of IAPs, he said, “extracting the far majority of profit from games on the App Store, and depriving developers of the ability to reinvest.”
He also criticised Apple’s introduction of ads in App Store search, “making the iPhone and iPad economy a rigged pay-to-win system favoring the most greedy monetizing developers.” He says that on console, “Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft heavily promote the best games, and sales are merit based.”
He kept going, bringing Roblox into the rant too. He claimed that Apple exudes “hatred for developers striving for a free market and fair competition,” adding:
“When we challenged their monopoly openly, the[y] blocked Fortnite from a billion users. But they look the other way on Roblox’s quiet violation of Apple policy, because Roblox stays silent.”
He concluded: “Apple made iPhone and iPad a colossally bad place for gaming, as the reported gaming Apple crash shows. It’s high time they abandoned open warfare against developers, law enforcers, and rule of law itself, and make wholesale changes to fix the godawful mess they created.”
