State of the App Store · release 2026-09 · methodology v1.0
The App Store in September 2026, by the numbers
A permanent, citable snapshot of the tracked catalogue as of 30 Sep 2026, with month activity for September 2026. Computed from our live index of public metadata — downloads, revenue and retention are not visible to us and are not estimated.
Apps tracked
939,770
Publishers
328,130
Total ratings
2,949,305,560
Mean rating
4.15
Free
92.3%
Paid
7.7%
Activity in September 2026
Newly tracked
57,310
Apps updated
28,467
Price drops
1,056
Price rises
1,161
Biggest categories
Change in what we tracked since the previous release
These figures describe our index, not the App Store. Most of the movement between early releases is us widening our crawl, not apps appearing or disappearing — so a jump in “Apps tracked”, or a swing in the paid share that follows from it, is a fact about our coverage and must not be read as a market trend. Where we can measure a real change in the store, we say so explicitly and label it.
| Metric | Previous | This release | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apps tracked | 882,784 | 939,770 | +56,986 |
| Publishers | 313,676 | 328,130 | +14,454 |
| Total ratings | 2,945,364,258 | 2,949,305,560 | +3,941,302 |
| Paid share % | 7.8 | 7.7 | −0.1 |
How to cite
AppWanderer. “State of the App Store, 2026-09.” https://appwanderer.com/data/releases/2026-09 (methodology v1.0). Free to quote and reproduce with a link back.