- General
- June 24, 2019
- 4 minutes read
Apple Says It Gets Fees From Less Than 1% Of Spotify Users
image: Apple In response to an antitrust complaint from Spotify, Apple has disclosed that it collects a 15% fee from roughly…
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| image: Apple |
In response to an antitrust complaint from Spotify, Apple has disclosed that it collects a 15% fee from roughly 680,000 out of Spotify’s 100 million paying customers [and 217 million total monthly active users]. Apple — which competes directly with Spotify with the Apple Music streaming service — said this in response to a complaint to EU regulators from Spotify that alleges Apple’s control of the App Store, including fees it charges for processing payments, has made it hard for rivals to compete for music streaming subscribers.
Apple charges a 30% fee for in-app purchases made on the App Store but that drops to 15% on subscription purchases made after a year. In exchange for the fees, Apple handles billing and payments — for apps — in over 100 countries. But in reaction to Spotify’s complaint, The Cupertino-based iPhone maker said that only a little fraction of Spotify’s users are affected by its fees. That’s because Spotify used Apple’s payments system between 2014 and 2016. The 680,000 paying Spotify customers who signed up during that period have all been paying for over a year, entailing Apple’s 15% cut.
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image: Apple
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Apple has also said Spotify paid it no amount for its premium subscribers who signed up during the past three years because the music streaming service has stopped using its payments system. Apple first filed its response on the 31st of May but documents were not publicly available then.German newspaper Der Spiegel earlier reported the metrics from Apple’s — now publicly available — response.
