Apple is set to change the pricing for their apps and how drastic the change will depend a lot on what country you’re in. The company notified developers of this earlier this week, with the changes due to hit sometime today.
The countries already set to have a price increase are Mexico, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey, with South Korea’s price hike due to a 10% value-added (VAT) tax which is now included in the price of apps.
Developers in that country would have to handle the tax on their own while Apple will collect and pay the tax for developers based outside of the country. As for the rest, it has to do with exchange rates.
Users in those countries who have auto-renewable subscriptions will have to resubscribe to follow the new pricings, but they will be notified by Apple and given the option to re-enable or opt out. Mexican users on the other hand will not have interruptions to their services but will be given the same options.
On the other hand, Apple is making two new low-price tiers available for India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and Turkey called Alternate Tier A and Alternate Tier B, which has already been active in the Chinese market. But it seems a bit weird that Mexico, South Africa and Turkey are getting a price increase but are also subject to the two new low-price tiers, so what exactly is Apple going to be doing for these three countries?
As for us, we don’t know yet if we will be affected by the fluctuations (our currency is taking a divebomb after all) so will we see higher or lower prices for the Malaysia market? What do you think?
