Apple has announced that its App Store saw its single biggest day ever in sales history on New Years Day 2015, and nearly half a billion dollars were spent in the App Store over the first week of January.

These milestones follow on from a strong 2014 for the App Store, which saw revenues rise 50 per cent, with developers generating over $10bn (£6.6bn) in earnings over the course of the year. To date, App Store developers have earned a cumulative $25bn through the sale of apps and games.

“This year is off to a tremendous start after a record-breaking year for the App Store and our developer community,” said Eddy Cue, senior vice president of internet software and services at Apple. “Were so proud of the creativity and innovation developers bring to the apps they create for iOS users and that the developer community has now earned over $25bn.”

Due to a partnership with Red, the AIDS charity, where certain apps produced exclusive content, with all proceeds going to the fight against AIDS, the holiday season also saw Apple donating $20m, its largest ever single donation.

The release of iOS 8 in late 2014 spurred developer innovation, thanks to the inclusion of new programming language Swift, app frameworks like HealthKit and HomeKit, and the Apple Pay NFC wallet system.

“The response weve seen from HotelTonight customers since the introduction of Apple Pay has been fantastic,” said Sam Shank, CEO of HotelTonight, one of the companies to integrate Apple Pay into its apps. “Our current customer base is enjoying the convenience of Apple Pay and were continuing to see a growing number of new customers because of Apple Pays easy and secure approach to payments.”