Apple removed 1,474 apps from App Store in 2022 after governments requested removal

Apple removed 1,474 apps from its App Store following requests from various governments to remove those apps in 2022, including a whopping 1,435 from mainland China and just 14 from India.

According to the company’s “2022 App Store Transparency Report,” the Pakistani government requested the removal of 10 apps, while Russia requested seven apps that violated various laws in the country.

There were a total of 18,412 app removal complaints from various agencies around the world (again China led with 5,484), including 709 from India. Apple recalled 24 apps in India following complaints about app removals last year.

According to the report, in 2022, Apple had a total of 1,783,232 applications in the App Store. The tech giant reviewed 6,101,913 app submissions and rejected 1,679,694 last year for violating App Store policies.

After rejection, there were 2,53,466 approved apps and the total number of apps ultimately removed from the App Store was 186,195 in 2022.

It was the first report released as part of the company’s $100 million settlement with App Store developers in 2021.

By category, games (38,883), utilities (20,045) and business (16,997) topped the list of removed apps.

The total number of Apple developers registered on the App Store was 36,974,015, and Apple suspended 4,28,487 developer accounts for violating its policies in 2022.

According to Apple, the App Store has proven to be a safe and reliable place to find and download apps since its launch in 2008.

Earlier this week, Apple announced that its App Store blocked more than $2.09 billion worth of potentially fraudulent transactions in 2022, blocked nearly 3.9 million stolen credit cards from being used to make purchases, and banned 7,14,000 accounts from making transactions again.

Read all the Latest Tech News here.