00:00Millions of developers in China are now benefiting from lower fees on Apple's iOS operating system.
00:06Apple says it's cutting commission fees on its app store in the Chinese mainland.
00:11Our correspondent Siobhan McCall has more details. Siobhan.
00:14Thanks, Robin. Yes, the move comes amid pressure from Chinese regulators
00:17and growing global scrutiny of the tech giant's payment rules.
00:21In-app purchase and paid transaction fees have been dropped from 30% to 25%.
00:28For developers in Apple's small business and mini-app program, the fees fall from 15% to 12%.
00:34The cuts could save Chinese developers more than $870 million a year.
00:41The lower fees will also reduce costs for China's 270 million Apple system users.
00:47The so-called Apple tax remains a major target for regulators worldwide.
00:51In 2024, the EU forced Apple to cut fees to between 10% and 17%.
00:58The company also lowered fees in Japan and South Korea last year.
01:02Well, Zhang Jiwei is president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.
01:07From a lot of data points that we've seen over the years,
01:13that China is certainly the number one producer of Apple phones.
01:17Also, nowadays, increasingly, from a consumer perspective,
01:22that if you include, say, Hong Kong into greater China,
01:26I think the sales value is massive.
01:29I think it's probably the largest or the top two, I guess,
01:34together with the U.S., single market from a global scale.
01:39And it's growing very fast.
01:41Does this decision and also things like the European Digital Markets Act
01:46weaken Apple's control over its app ecosystem?
01:49Yeah, well, I'm not an expert on Europe,
01:53but I believe you need to find basically a balance, right,
01:57between the benefits and the interests of Apple on one hand,
02:04and the developers on the other hand.
02:07So I think this accounting commission,
02:12if you look at sort of the statistical,
02:15just look at this policy itself,
02:19probably Apple will lose some of the revenues.
02:23But if you look at the longer term dynamically,
02:25if this helps the developers to, you know, perform better,
02:31and it could actually benefit the ecosystem.
02:34So, you know, I don't think it's debatable.
02:37I don't think this is clearly negative in the long time.
02:40Could I just ask you there about what you said
02:42it could benefit the ecosystem?
02:44Tell me a bit more about that.
02:46Well, for the ecosystem to be healthy,
02:49to be successful in the long term,
02:51you need the developers to be active and to be profitable.
02:55And so there's basically a, you know,
03:00division of interest between the platform itself
03:04and the developers doing their business on the platform.
03:09And so, you know, in the longer term,
03:13the benefit of giving some concession to these developers
03:18would help them to become more active
03:21and do better business on the platform.
03:23So the platform potentially in the longer term could benefit.
03:28And we also need to keep in mind that the platform,
03:30the Apple platform is competing with other platforms
03:35like a Google operating system, right?
03:38So that in China,
03:41consumers will look at all these platforms
03:43and find the most affordable products
03:46so that, you know,
03:48for these developers to be successful on Apple platform,
03:51they need to have, you know,
03:53competitive pricing
03:55and lower commission would help them to deliver that.
03:59And do you think we could see this leading
04:00to similar things in other countries
04:02where they're demanding lower commissions from Apple?
04:05Yeah, I could imagine.
04:07I mean, I think it's very likely
04:09that this would lead to other countries
04:13to follow similar actions.
04:15But whether they can be successful
04:17pushing Apple to cut commission,
04:21well, it depends.
04:22I think China is quite a unique market
04:24in the sense that the size of it
04:26really give these developers
04:28and also give the regulator the leverage
04:30to push Apple to cut commission.
04:32For smaller countries,
04:35I don't know.
04:36I mean, it essentially depends on
04:38the bargaining power of the two sides
04:40and whether they can get the commission discount
04:45and how much of a discount can be.
04:48I mean, that's also we have to wait and see.
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