Of those 400 million apps, the best guesses suggest that fewer than 10% of downloads are paid. Estimates have put the values at about 10-20 cents per dollar app. The costs are fixed though, so they do make much higher profits on more expensive apps. But the app store ecosystem hasn't made that a huge factor.
Even under optimistic assumptions: 100% profit, average sale price of $5, 15% paid downloads, the numbers are not good:
400,000,000*0.15*5*0.3 = 90,000,000
That's nothing compared to the billions they are posting in profit each quarter.
The hardware margins are also almost certainly much higher than 20%, probably over 30% on a lot of the higher end hardware.
Even under optimistic assumptions: 100% profit, average sale price of $5, 15% paid downloads, the numbers are not good:
That's nothing compared to the billions they are posting in profit each quarter.The hardware margins are also almost certainly much higher than 20%, probably over 30% on a lot of the higher end hardware.