Apple received more than just a little Christmas spirit over the holiday season with the tech giant announcing a new App Store sales record.

For the two weeks ending January 3, Apple customers spent over a whopping $1.1 billion on apps and in-app purchases for the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV, setting back-to-back weekly records for traffic and purchases.

New Year’s Day wasn’t just the start of the new year either, with the day marking the biggest ever single day in App Store history as customers spent over $144 million, breaking the previous single-day record set one week earlier on Christmas Day.

In total Apple said customers had spent over $20 billion on the App Store in 2015, itself a new record high, and that in total the App Store has brought in nearly $40 billion for developers since 2008.

Gaming, Social Networking and Entertainment topped the popularity list in 2015, with popular titles including Minecraft: Pocket Edition, Trivia Crack and Heads Up! in gaming and Facebook Messenger, WeChat and Snapchat in social.

Top grossing apps included Clash of Clans, Monster Strike, Game of War – Fire Age and Fantasy Westward Journey, as well as Netflix, Hulu and Match.

Apple also took the opportunity to highlight the benefits of the App Store on the broader economy, noting that Apple is now responsible (via the App Store) for creating and supporting 1.9 million jobs in the U.S. alone, with nearly three-quarters of those jobs, over 1.4 million, attributable to the community of app creators, software engineers and entrepreneurs building apps for iOS, as well as non-IT jobs supported directly and indirectly through the app economy.

Broader horizons

The increase in sales through the App Store doesn’t come as a huge surprise, as 2015 marked the release of two new Apple products: the Apple Watch and a new Apple TV that supports apps for the first time.

While considered (fairly) by many to be a flop, the Apple Watch has nonetheless shipped around 10-15 million units, and the device itself requires specific apps designed for it, creating an entirely new app market in itself.

The new Apple TV, the surprise hit of the year, is seriously starting to take off with over 2,600 apps already available for it with undoubtedly many more to follow as sales of the device continues to grow.

Apple noted that the new Apple TV’s most popular apps include Rayman Adventures, Beat Sports and HBO NOW, while chart-topping apps for Apple Watch owners include fitness apps Nike+ Running and Lifesum and iTranslate and Citymapper in the Travel category.

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