Apple today announced that 2025 was a “record-breaking year” for many of its services, including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple TV, and Apple Podcasts.
“Apple services had a banner year, rolling out game-changing features for customers while shattering records,” said Apple’s services chief Eddy Cue, in a press release. “The numbers reflect the incredible enthusiasm of our customers, whether it’s downloading an exciting new app or game, watching the hottest new show with family and friends, listening to their favorite songs, or shopping with peace of mind.”
Here are some of the 2025 statistics shared in Apple’s announcement:
- App Store had over 850 million average weekly users across 175 countries and regions, and it set a new annual record for U.S. visitors.
- App Store had a record number of visitors between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day.
- Apple TV set a new record for monthly engagement in December, with total hours of content viewed on the streaming service up 36% on a year-over-year basis. This increase was driven by hits such as F1: The Movie and Pluribus.
- Apple Music had its best year ever, breaking records for listenership and new subscribers.
- Shazam generated over 1 billion recognitions per month.
- Apple Pay is now available in 89 markets, and Apple says the payment service eliminated well over $1 billion in fraud globally.
- Tap to Pay on iPhone is now available in 50 markets.
- Apple Maps expanded its Detailed City Experience with 3D landmarks to new locations, like New Orleans, Singapore, and Monaco.
- Apple’s Share Item Location feature in the Find My app is now offered by 36 airlines.
- Apple Arcade added more than 50 new games.
- Apple Fitness+ expanded to 28 more countries and regions, and it is launching in Japan early this year.
- Apple Podcasts set annual records for listeners, episode plays, and new subscribers.
- Apple News is the most popular news app in the U.S., Canada, and Australia, and the second most popular news app in the U.K.
For more details about new features added to Apple’s services in 2025, as well as various other records set, head to the Apple Newsroom website.
Popular Stories
Apple Is Expected to Launch These Four MacBooks in 2026
2026 could be a bumper year for Apple’s Mac lineup, with the company expected to announce as many as four separate MacBook launches. Rumors suggest Apple will court both ends of the consumer spectrum, with more affordable options for students and feature-rich premium lines for users that seek the highest specifications from a laptop. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. …
10 Reasons to Wait for This Year’s iPhone 18 Pro
Apple’s iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max. One thing worth…
Squinting Face, Pickle, and Lighthouse Among New Emoji Coming to iOS
The Unicode Consortium has published a draft list of emoji that could come to smartphones and other devices in the future. The list shared by Emojipedia outlines 19 emoji candidates under consideration for Emoji 18.0, which is expected to be finalized in September 2026. Among the proposed additions are a squinting face emoji, left- and right-pointing thumb gestures, a pickle, a lighthouse, a …
Apple Reminding Users of Pending Home App Upgrade Requirement
Back in late 2022 and early 2023, Apple rolled out a new architecture for its Apple Home platform to deliver improved performance and compatibility, although the rollout came with some hiccups that forced Apple to pull and later re-release the upgrade. Three years later, Apple is now on the verge of ending support for the old version of the Home architecture, which may result in access to…
Apple Confirms Google Gemini Will Power Next-Generation Siri This Year
In a statement shared with CNBC today, Apple confirmed that Google Gemini will power the next-generation version of Siri that is slated to launch later this year. ”After careful evaluation, we determined that Google’s technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and we’re excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for our users,” the statement…
U.S. Senators Ask Apple and Google to Remove X and Grok Apps Over Sexualized Image Generation
In a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, U.S. Senators Ron Wyden, Ben Ray Lujan, and Edward Markey have requested that Apple and Google remove X Corp’s X and Grok apps from their app stores over recent incidents of “mass generation of nonconsensual sexualized images of women and children.” X has come under fire over the past week amid reports of Grok’s AI image…
iOS 26 Shows Unusually Slow Adoption Months After Release
iOS 26 is showing unusually slow adoption among iPhone users months after release, according to third-party analytics. Usage data published by StatCounter (via Cult of Mac) for January 2026 indicates that only around 15 to 16% of active iPhones worldwide are running any version of iOS 26. The breakdown shows iOS 26.1 accounting for approximately 10.6% of devices, iOS 26.2 for about 4.6%, and …