In the future, music streaming providers will be able to direct their users in the European Economic Area (EEA) to take out a subscription outside of Apple’s App Store. However, the iPhone company wants to collect a fee of up to 27 percent of the purchase price. The US company introduced the new option around a month following a billion-dollar competition fine from the EU Commission, which was triggered by a complaint from rival Spotify.
At the same time, Apple emphasized at the weekend that the Commission’s decision does not restrict the company from charging fees for the use of the company’s technologies and services. When subscribing to the in-house App Store, Apple charges a fee of 30 percent in the first year. After that – and for smaller companies from the start – the levy is 15 percent.
The new fee for links from music apps to external subscriptions is based on this: the fee drops to 12 percent following one year. Apple only charges the fees if the links are used by users to take out a subscription within a week.
Spotify had expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that the service was not allowed to indicate to users in its app where the subscription might be taken out outside of Apple’s download platform on the web. In this case, Apple does not receive any tax – but the subscription offer can be used in the app following registration. Just like Netflix, for example, Spotify stopped offering a more expensive option for subscribing within the app years ago.
At the beginning of March, the EU Commission imposed a fine of 1.84 billion euros on Apple and asked the company to create options for redirecting users to external subscriptions. The year-long investigation focused on competition in music streaming apps – and the decision only applies to this market. Of the fine, only 40 million euros related to actual economic disadvantages for Spotify; the remaining 1.8 billion euros are intended, according to the Commission, “as a deterrent”. Apple announced that it would appeal, but still has to implement the commission’s guidelines
