The App Industry Is Bigger Than Hollywood - In Revenues and Jobs

There are a lot of occupations that seem glamorous, depending on your personal inclinations: television, finance, politics, technology, even oil and gas. Fame, wealth and the envy of your peers are available in each.

But none has surpassed film over the past century in terms of its allure. Beautiful people, big cars, stunning homes, lots of money.

'The industry' as it is called in LA, could be said to have created Southern California, though the weather definitely gets a nomination for Best 'Factor' in a Supporting Role.

The reality is that that pretty world is changing. Tech companies like Amazon and Netflix are creating their own content. Actors and actresses attempt to demonstrate their smarts and cool by becoming name investors in tech startups.

And where winners or losers get truly defined - in the nets and grosses - tech is pulling ahead. Apps, specifically, are now earning greater revenues and providing more jobs than the one industry town known best as Hollywood.

What this portends is less certain than it might seem. 'Hollywood,' like 'Wall Street,' is more a state of mind and a website than a geographical location. Where film and finance end and technology begins is now impossible to discern. As the Chairman of the Board, Ol' Blue Eyes Frank Sinatra once sang, 'you can't have one without the other.'

Apps are in service to entertainment in the same way that entertainment provides content that fuels the growth of apps. That suggests convergence and the opportunity to optimize the value creation potential of both.  Have your people call my people. JL

Rob Price reports in Business Insider:

The amount paid out to iOS app developers 2014 — over $10 billion — now exceeds Hollywood at the box office.The app industry is outstripping other digitally distributed content too. It's a bigger business than TV programs, movie rentals and purchases put together.
Before 2008, Apple's App Store didn't exist. Today, it's bigger business than Hollywood.
That's the claim made by analyst Horace Dediu, who's compared figures from the two industries. He's pointed out that the amount paid out to iOS app developers 2014 — over $10 billion — now exceeds the amount taken by Hollywood at the box office.
Of course, there are additional streams of revenue for Hollywood beyond the US domestic box office. But Apple's App Store "is not the complete revenue picture either." There's Android, for a start. There's also "ads and services and custom development." Once you factor all those in, Dediu expects that the app economy will still be larger than the movie business.
The app industry is outstripping other digitally distributed content too. It's a bigger business than TV programs, movie rentals and purchases put together.
Take a look at the graph:
Asymco.com
The app industry isn't just beating the movie industry, it's also growing far faster. As the graph below indicates, it's on an upwards trajectory that doesn't look likely to plateau any time soon.
Asymco.com(The data is in millions.)
It bucks conventional wisdom, because as Dediu points out, "comprehension of the phenomenon is lagging." People simply aren't aware of how huge apps are, and how much they're growing.
One more interesting fact: The app economy also produces more jobs in the US than Hollywood — 627,000 for iOS alone, compared to 374,000.