Apple announced a new record for App Store sales on a single day, as consumers rounded off the holiday period by spending $300 million in total on 1 January 2018.

In a statement, Apple said the $300 million spend on apps was the most for a single day since the App Store launched in 2008, representing a 25 per cent increase from New Year’s Day 2017.

Apple also said during the week starting on Christmas eve, a record number of customers made purchases or downloaded apps from the App Store, spending $890 million during the seven day period up to the new year. The growth is no doubt a boost for Apple, given smartphone sales growth is now becoming harder to come by.

In terms of individual apps registering growth, Apple hailed those integrated with augmented reality (AR) features, which are built on Apple’s ARKit framework.

The company said Pokemon Go was back at the top of the App Store chart on 21 December following the introduction of new AR features. There are now 2,000 ARKit-enabled apps across a wide range of categories on the App Store, Apple added.

Phil Schiller, Apple’s SVP of worldwide marketing, said iOS developers earned $26.5 billion in 2017, a 30 per cent increase over 2016, contributing to a total of more than $86 billion since the App Store launched in 2008.

And just this week, Apple announced the acquisition of app tool start-up Buddybuild to enable developers to easily test and improve apps on an ongoing basis.