A UK university professor has launched a class action lawsuit against Apple on behalf of more than 1,500 iPhone and iPad app developers.
Professor Sean Ennis, of the University of East Anglia Centre for Competition Policy, filed the lawsuit with the Competition Appeal Tribunal, and on behalf of 1,566 UK app developers.
Apple takes 30 per cent of the revenues app developers make on the App Store through sales and in-app payments — or 15 per cent for the first million dollars, in the case of developers enrolled in Apple’s App Store Small Business Program.
“The charges are unfair in their own right, and constitute abusive pricing. They harm app developers and also app buyers,” said Ennis in a statement, as reported by Reuters.
“Apple’s charges to app developers are excessive, and only possible due to its monopoly on the distribution of apps onto iPhones and iPads.”
Google adopts the same practice. Smaller developers have 15 per cent of their revenue siphoned off, increasing to 30 per cent when they hit the $1 million mark.
This case mirrors another established in the UK back in 2021. Dr Rachael Kent, lecturer in Digital Economy & Society at King’s College London, claimed Apple’s charges were “excessive and unlawful”, doing so on behalf of consumers rather than developers.
The case is seeking compensation of £1.5 billion, even higher than the £800 million aim of this new developer-led action. It is still ongoing, despite Apple’s attempts to have it thrown out, and has a “reasonable prospect of success”.
How much does Apple’s App Store charge?
Apple’s cut of revenues is why you have to pay more when you subscribe to, for example, Twitter Blue through your iPhone rather than the x.com website. It is also the root cause of the Apple vs Epic Games spat that led to a lawsuit and Fortnite being removed from the App Store, after Epic Games attempted to bypass Apple’s App Store payments system.
Is Apple’s approach justified? While similar revenue splits are seen across other digital platforms, the case against Apple is strengthened by the closed nature of the platform. Apps cannot be installed on iPhones and iPads through other means, while third-party apps stores are available for Android devices and PCs.
How do Apple’s rates compare to other platforms? Popular distribution games platform Steam takes 30 per cent of developer revenues, dropping to 25 per cent at $10 million, and to 20 per cent at $50 million.
Epic Games takes just 12 per cent of app revenue, a rate matched by Microsoft in the Windows Store since 2021.
In January 2023, Apple announced it had paid out £249 billion to developers since the App Store’s inception in 2008.
The Evening Standard has contacted Apple for comment.
