iQiyi, Youku and Tencent Video’s 618 promotion, are Apple users out of the game?

This article delves into the embarrassing situation that Apple users encountered during the 618 promotion, revealing the reasons behind it and Apple's "Apple tax" policy. The article analyzes Apple's restrictions on third-party payment channels and the impact of this policy on consumers and the market.

I wanted to take advantage of the low prices during the 618 promotion to renew my membership on those video websites. However, I couldn't see any product links after browsing several Douyin live broadcast rooms. Most of them even had a message saying "Apple users need to switch to Android to place orders."

I wanted to buy it on Alipay, but when I searched, I saw that the recharge entrance was directly marked "iOS does not support the current service", but Android phones were not affected.

What is going on?

Qiuxiang learned that a paid knowledge blogger received an official notice at the end of May, saying that due to platform upgrades and maintenance, iOS users were temporarily unable to view these product categories. However, 618 is the best time for merchants to increase sales, so removing products from the shelves at this time is obviously not a good choice.

Therefore, many bloggers speculated that it might be because these digital products have disturbed Apple's cheese.

You should know that as long as an application is downloaded and used through the APP Store, every income within the application, including subscription services, props sales, etc., needs to be shared with Apple at 30%. This part of the income is also called Apple tax.

Since physical services are not included in the commission scope, membership recharges built into e-commerce apps and mini-programs are also exempt from "taxation".

The problem is that on e-commerce platforms, the membership prices of video websites are much lower than those of Apple's official channels. For example, the annual membership card of iQiyi is 198 yuan/year when purchased in the iOS APP Store, but only 128 yuan/year when purchased on a third-party e-commerce platform, which is a 34% discount. But this is absolutely not allowed for Apple.

You know, the APP Store ecosystem is an important source of income for Apple. If it is just selling memberships to video websites, it would be fine, but the fear is that once these sales channels that are exempt from the "Apple tax" become a habit, they will impact the sales of Apple's own APP in-app purchases.

This is probably why Apple users were blocked from buying products during the big sale!

However, Apple's practice of charging channel fees and blocking third-party payment channels has been criticized for a long time, and Apple has also been involved in many lawsuits. For example, in March this year, the US Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, and the European Union also issued a fine of up to 1.8 billion euros. As a result, Apple made a historic concession, and the EU's commission rate was reduced from 30% to 17%, and the US Apple tax was also reduced to 26%.

Now this clause has been relaxed in many regions, including Europe, the United States, Japan, and South Korea, which have all opened up third-party payment. However, as a key market for Apple, China is still the market with the highest Apple tax in the world.

Qiuxiang just wants to say that when the Apple tax truly affects the vital interests of consumers, it may be time for Apple to reflect.