Shopping online is so… 2018. According to a new Apple-supported study released by independent economists at Analysis Group, it seems like the hottest digital shopping destination is the App Store, which facilitated US$519 billion in sales and billings in 2019 alone—with China accounting for US$246 billion of that total. That means that App Store customers bought and paid for more than half a trillion dollars worth of apps, digital services, digital products, and physical goods and services—the latter of which accounted for US$413 billion in transactions, more than 85 per cent of the total—last year, all accessed at their fingertips, from the convenience of personal computing devices and smartphones, and without ever setting foot inside a brick-and-mortar retailer. 

Check out the sales figures breakdown by category:

• US$268 billion spent on retail in the App store, including but not limited to popular physical and virtual retailers such as Target, Best Buy and Etsy. Of this figure, US$225 billion was spent by Chinese App Store users.
• US$61 billion spent on digital goods and services such as video streaming, games, e-books, digital media and dating services
• US$57 billion spent with travel apps such as Airbnb, Agoda, hotels.com, Trivago and Klook
• US$40 billion spent on rideshare apps such as Uber and Lyft
• US$31 billion spent on food delivery apps such as Food Panda, UberEats and Deliveroo
• US$14 billion spent in grocery apps 

The top App Store games of 2019 include most-downloaded-of-the-year game Mario Kart Tour and popular iPhone game Sky: Children of the Light. And in-app advertising sales totalled at US$45 billion, with 44 per cent of that figure coming from in-app advertising in games. 

"In a challenging and unsettling time, the App Store provides enduring opportunities for entrepreneurship, health and well-being, education, and job creation, helping people adapt quickly to a changing world," Apple's CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.

According to the study, these numbers likely reflect a "lower bound" of the actual total value of transactions "facilitated by the Apple Store ecosystem" last year: "For context, Deloitte estimated the total app economy—including the Android platform—at $340 billion in 2018 in the US alone. App Annie estimated that the global app economy, including all platforms, was worth $1.3 trillion in 2016 and will grow to $6.3 trillion in 2021."