As a state, Colorado is the 11th largest contributor in the U.S. to the world’s top-grossing mobile apps, according to ACT|The App Association.
Colorado may be the nation’s 22nd most populated state, but we have more than our fair share of mobile app developers who make money.
According to , a trade group that represents 5,000 app developers, ranked Colorado at number 11 for top-grossing apps. A big chunk of those revenues is credited to Craftsy, which offers in-app purchases of crafting classes for free to $50.
The because the virtual crafting classroom has “more than 5 million customers.”
“We initially chose to feature Craftsy in our report because they were one of the first companies with an app on the nascent Apple TV platform,” said Jonathan Godfrey, the association’s vice president for public affairs. “But Craftsy has been a top app maker for years. They have one of the world’s most profitable education apps and are growing rapidly with over 20 job openings.”
The mobile app ecosystem, which includes app sales at Apple and Android app stores, hit $120 billion last year, according to the organization, which researched data available from the competing stores. That’s up from the prior year’s $87 billion. And next year, the association estimated the ecosystem will reach $143 billion.
A key point of the report is to point out that most apps are not developed in Silicon Valley (82 percent), the majority (82 percent) are small businesses and most (68 percent) have job openings.
The App Association reports that most of the top-grossing apps don’t call Silicon Valley home. Colorado ranks 11th for such apps.
Godfrey pointed out that Craftsy isn’t alone. There’s in Denver; Boulder-based Books of Discovery and its ; and Sphero, the Boulder toy-robot maker with the Star Wars BB-8 toy and app.
“The huge growth of tech companies around the Denver region is why we chose to highlight a company from the region. We could do a whole report on Denver companies alone given how much groundbreaking innovation is happening there right now,” Godfrey said. “Denver also boasts a booming community of app development studios like , which makes apps for major brands like JetBlue, Major League Soccer, and Hasbro.”
