Inflation is the word of the year as countries around the world face rising inflation due to various factors, causing prices to skyrocket and some currencies to decline. With all this going on, the world’s biggest company, Apple, has announced that it will soon be raising the prices on its App Store.
Revealed in a note to developers, the change is slated to take effect next month, affecting both apps and in-store purchases. The note says the price increase will start “as early as” 5 October, meaning some of the regions mentioned might see the change on a later date.
Among the countries that will fall under the new app store markup include Malaysia, Chile, Egypt, Japan, Pakistan, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, Vietnam, and any territory that uses the Euro as its currency — with the exception of Montenegro. Oddly enough, the tech giant did not elaborate on why it is implementing the price increase, although it did specifically clarify that in Vietnam, the change is happening because of new tax regulations that added 5% VAT and corporate tax.
You can check out Apple’s chart of the upcoming new price tiers here [PDF], but we didn’t manage to find a list of the current price tiers for Malaysia to compare it to. It seems that under the new prices, the lowest paid tier for apps, which is tier 1, will cost RM4.90 while the new alternative tier A is priced at RM0.90.
The company added that auto-renewable subscriptions won’t be affected by the app store price increase. Additionally, developers can also choose to retain their app’s current prices for existing subscribers.
The change isn’t surprising seeing as how the Malaysian Ringgit has been slumping against the US Dollar this year and has hit a record low that has not been seen since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The inflation also saw this year’s iPhone 14 Pro lineup in Malaysia sport significantly higher price tags compared to last year’s devices.
(Source: Apple)
