Apple’s app store transparency report: Which apps were censored where

After Apple had given information about app store fraud attempts and countermeasures last week, the group now delivers a complete transparency report for 2024. The “App Store Transparency Report” is published annually, it has been published for the third time. Among other things, it contains information on how often and from which states censorship request to be asked on Apple.

Three applications for deletion from Switzerland successful

The frequent “Goverment Takedown Demands”, i.e. successful inquiries from states to delete apps, came from the People’s Republic of China (1307), from Russia (171), South Korea (79) and Ukraine (55). The only European country on the list was Switzerland with a total of three apps that had to be removed. In China it should be borne in mind that 1131 programs were removed due to the lack of game licenses that are mandatory in the country.

In the last transparency report for 2023, China still came to 1285 successful deletions (1067 games), followed by South Korea (103 – 102 of which games with false retirement rating), India (30) and Russia (12). In 2023, two European countries were on the list with Lithuania (5 apps) and Hungary (one app), the Ukraine came to 5 deletions.

Further data from the transparency report

A total of Apple examined 7.7 million apps in 2024, of which 1.9 million were rejected. The total number of apps in the App Store in 2024 was 1.9 million units. 295,109 apps were approved after a first rejection after revision. A total of 82,509 apps were deleted from the App Store. Most of them were “utilities”, followed by games and the areas of lifestyle, business and entertainment. Most distances were created for design reasons, followed by fraud and copyright violations, spam and violations of export control requirements.

The App Store worked in a total of 175 countries and regions in 2024. After deletion, Apple in China restored only 78 apps, in the USA 71, followed by India (19), Great Britain (16) and Turkey (also 16). Apple deleted 128 million problematic accounts in 2024. The number of automatic app updates per week is a whopping 66 billion, App updates 638 million times are initiated manually. According to Apple, the app store ecosystem generated a total of $ 406 billion in sales in the USA in 2024.