App Store revenue increased 40 per cent year-on-year to an all time quarterly high during Apple’s fiscal Q2 2017, while the number of developers publishing on the platform increased 26 per cent year-on-year.

For the second quarter in a row revenue at Apple’s Services division (which includes its App Store, Apple Pay, Apple Music, iCloud, and Messaging) topped $7 billion, an 18 per cent increase year-on-year.

In a conference call to discuss the fiscal Q2 results – covering the three months to end-March – Apple CEO Tim Cook said the services unit “is well on the way to being the size of a Fortune 100 company,” and momentum around the company’s App Store is “terrific”.

CFO Luca Maestri said a quarterly increase in the number of paying accounts was the largest ever experienced by the company, but did not provide precise details of how many accounts he was referring to. Maestri was similarly vague in terms of average revenue per paying account, only stating the company maintained growth in this regard.

According to Sensor Tower, the US App Store generated approximately $7.6 billion gross revenue compared to 5.4 billion app downloads in 2016.

Research company App Annie last week revealed App Store and Google Play app downloads grew 15 per cent year-on-year to nearly 25 billion in calendar Q1 2017, while gross consumer spend rose 45 per cent to well over $15 billion.

Google Play widened its lead over the App Store to 135 per cent in terms of worldwide downloads, up from a 100 per cent lead in Q1 2016, but the App Store performed better in terms of consumer spend.