According to the "Tian Junwei" public account, today, 48 Chinese developers submitted a "Developer Report Letter Regarding Apple's Abuse of its Monopoly in the Chinese Market" to the State Administration for Market Regulation, pointing out that Apple's "global lowest rate commitment" made to the Chinese market has not been fulfilled.
In March of this year, Apple lowered its IAP commission rates for mainland China (Mainland) from 30% to 25% for standard developers and from 15% to 12% for small developers. It also proposed the "China Lowest Rate Commitment": to always provide developers who distribute apps in China with competitive App Store rates that are no higher than the overall rate levels in other markets. This commitment has also been dubbed "most favored nation treatment" by the media.
But on June 19, Apple officially "cut taxes" in Brazil: lowering the IAP rate (standard 26% / small 15%), allowing third-party payment within the app (standard 21% / small 10%), letting go of external links to jump to web page payments (standard 15% / small 10%), and opening up third-party app stores and webpage downloads and distribution, charging a unified 5% core technology commission.
In fact, Brazil is already the third major market in the world to complete the simultaneous opening of "IAP fee reduction + third-party payment + third-party distribution". This time, Brazil basically followed Japan's latest Apple tax policy framework in December last year, and together with the three EU countries formed a rate plan of "omni-channel opening + multi-path fee reduction".
Compared with the Brazilian tax reduction plan, Apple's adjustment scope for the Chinese market is limited to IAP single rates. Third-party payment, external link payment, third-party app stores and web download distribution channels are not open, which means that Apple's commitment to the world's lowest rates for the Chinese market has been broken.
According to public information, the report letter was initiated by 48 Chinese small and medium-sized iOS developers and individual developers, including Yuan Cell Network and Tian Junwei.
The report letter believes that in the Chinese market, more than three months have passed since Apple made its promise of "the lowest rate in the world", and only IAP fee reduction has been fulfilled. Third-party distribution, in-app third-party payment, and external link payment channels are still not open. There is a significant quantifiable gap between Apple’s “world’s lowest rate” commitment to China and its overseas implementation results.
The report letter calls on the regulatory authorities to file a case and investigate Apple's suspected illegal activities in accordance with the law; Apple should open third-party application distribution, in-app third-party payment, external link payment and other channels; Apple should establish an "automatic alignment supervision mechanism". When Apple has new overseas rate reductions or channel openings, it should be implemented simultaneously in the Chinese market on the same day.