Apple To Hike App Store Prices Across Europe and Some Parts of Asia Next Month

Apple says it will increase App Store prices across Europe and in some Asian markets next month as currencies weaken against the strong US dollar. The price increases will effect both in-app purchases and regular apps on the App Store starting on October 5th. From a report: All countries using the Euro, Sweden, South Korea, Chile, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Japan will be affected by the price hikes. All Euro markets, except Montenegro, will see the base $0.99 app pricing move to $1.19 next month, a 20 percent jump. In Japan the hikes are more than 30 percent, amid the yen dropping to a new 24-year low against the US dollar.

If the dollar is strong...

[WoodstockJeff]

...Asian currencies must be VERY weak.

Re:If the dollar is strong...

[ac22]

Not really. The US has massively increased interest rates in a bid to fight inflation. This means that US Treasury bond yields have also increased hugely:

U.S. 10 Year Treasury US10Y - 3.575%

https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/US... [cnbc.com]

In comparison, the Japanese 10Y Government Bond is currently yielding 0.255%/year
https://tradingeconomics.com/j... [tradingeconomics.com]

Given the US T-bond's reputation for being the safest investment out there, foreign currency has been flooding into the US bond market to take advantage of the high yields, driving up the value of the dollar against almost every other major currency.

Why hold onto Japanese bonds paying 0.255%/year when the US equivalent will net you 3.575%/year?

Re:

[timeOday]

The dollar / yen exchange rate is the highest it has been since 1989, and you call that "not really" strong? The dollar is very strong and the increased interest rate is the mechanism of making it so. Of course we are paying a price in other ways to support that interest rate.

Re:

[ac22]

"Not really" was in response to

Asian currencies must be VERY weak

Of course the US dollar is strong. The point of my post was that it is strong against ALL currencies, not just Asian currencies. The Japanese yen has been particularly badly hit, because their own interest rates remain low:

The yen has weakened beyond 140 per dollar for the first time in almost a quarter century, mainly because Japan’s central bank is keeping interest rates at rock-bottom levels while the Federal Reserve and other central banks are conducting outsized rate hikes. Price growth in Japan is much cooler than in the US, and the Bank of Japan believes it needs to do more to cement inflation in the minds of consumers and businesses after years of deflation.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]

Currencies such as the Chinese yuan, the Thai baht and the Singapore dollar were not nearly as badly affected. The Euro and the GBP have done much worse in the last 12 months.

Re:

[timeOday]

fair enough!

...why raise the price in US dollars?

[Roger W Moore]

It also makes no sense to raise the prices in USD from $0.99 to $1.19 since that will make the discrepancy with prices in other currencies even worse. I suspect the summary is wrong and what it should say is that they are increasing the prices in Europe from 0.99 EUR to 1.19 EUR.

Re:

[ShanghaiBill]

I suspect the summary is wrong and what it should say is that they are increasing the prices in Europe from 0.99 EUR to 1.19 EUR.

You are correct. The article lists the currency as Euro, but for some idiotic reason, it was switched to USD in the summary.

Re:

[MachineShedFred]

That idiotic reason has a name: msmash

People often buy apps?

[jawtheshark]

Doesn't everyone just have a collection of apps you need and stick to those? I can't even remember when I bought an App. Even free apps only get downloaded when absolutely needed.

Re: People often buy apps?

[unami]

I bought quite some games and producticity apps over time but nowadays I don't care that much about touchscreen-gaming and a lot of apps are subscription-only, which I won't support (unless it's for adobe's CC). Last app I spent money on was a metronome in December '21, before that "Baldur's Gate" in April.

Re:

[rudy_wayne]

Doesn't everyone just have a collection of apps you need and stick to those? I can't even remember when I bought an App. Even free apps only get downloaded when absolutely needed.

Yes. I've always thought it is really weird that there is any significant money to be made selling apps.

Re:

[pauljlucas]

How are phone apps different from desktop apps? Desktop app sales have been lucrative for over 40 years.

Re:

[Tablizer]

80% of free apps are crap, at least on Android. They half work and are full of pop-up ads. They are only "free" if your time is free.

Re:

[MBGMorden]

I haven't bought in a while either, but I suspect most people making huge money from apps are doing it from microtransactions.

I had a coworker who wrote some puzzle/matching game and put it on the app store for $0.99 and I think he made like a total of $6 on that app, mostly from coworkers and family members pity-purchasing it.

It's just an excuse to raise prices

[Hasaf]

Consider, that the products are made in Asia. The inputs are at "Asian Rates." Therefore it would make sense, if this really were an economic decision, to reduce the price in USD and make no changes to the Asian prices.

Re: It's just an excuse to raise prices

[unami]

Nah, this is about software prices.

Re:

[real_nickname]

Apps are made everywhere not only in Asia. Still I agree it is just an excuse. Sony did the same with its PS5, 50 euros increase. Fighting the inflation spiral means companies must try as much as possible to not increase theirs prices, those megacorporations should be treated as enemy of European and Asian economies. People should boycott them (well, it won't happen).

Re: It's just an excuse to raise prices

[guruevi]

That attitude is exactly why prices are rising. You cannot increase regulatory overhead and expect that to cost nothing.

Re:

[real_nickname]

Regulatory did not increase but Fed is increasing its rate every month which accelerates the fall of all other currencies on the planet.

Unicode strikes again

[FST]

Summary:

All Euro markets, except Montenegro, will see the base $0.99 app pricing move to $1.19 next month, a 20 percent jump.

Article:

All Euro markets, except Montenegro, will see the base â0.99 app pricing move to â1.19 next month, a 20 percent jump

Instead of messing up the unicode this time, the author decided to mess up the currency. Nicely done.

apple is asking to lose the app store lockin in

[Joe_Dragon]

apple is asking to lose the app store lockin in some markets.
People may want more control over pricing or even to be able to price it at local funds .99 or what ever they want.

Antitrust

[MachineShedFred]

This is really a shitty move on Apple's part, and you can bet it will be used as evidence of holding a monopoly in antitrust legal action.

"See, they can just raise prices whenever they like, and you have no choice but to pay up"

Well, no choice except to tell Apple to go fist themselves and get an Android phone I suppose; but watch Google do the same thing next week.

We're paying their fines.

[devslash0]

They've got to pay all those government fines somehow, right? It was rather obvious that it's the users who eventually would absorb all the extra spending.

You can buy your mom some more expensive apps!

[turp182]

After you have bought her a phone, as Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, suggested to a reported:

https://www.dailydot.com/debug... [dailydot.com]

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