The App Store just became a little pricier for many non-U.S. customers. Apple’s planned price hike went into effect today for any market that uses the euro, in addition to Chile, Egypt, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Poland, South Korea, Sweden, and Vietnam.

In most markets, the price increase equates to about 20% higher costs for apps (though it’s even more in some countries, like Japan and South Korea). So a mobile app that was previously 0.99 euros now costs 1.19 euros, while the same is true for an in-app purchase like mobile game currency. Curiously, Apple isn’t saying why exactly, leaving developers to guess whether it’s due to currency fluctuations, the related global economic crisis, or perhaps rising energy costs related to operating the App Store overseas.

The price hike is arriving at a sensitive time. The combination of record inflation and a looming global recession has started to take a serious toll on foreign markets as the strength of the U.S. dollar continues to grow relative to weakening foreign currencies like the euro, the British pound, and the Japanese yen.

• While Apple has yet to raise prices in the U.S., it hiked the price of the new iPhone 14 lineup in Australia, Germany, Japan, and the U.K., in some cases by the equivalent of nearly $150.
• A number of other consumer electronics companies, including PlayStation maker Sony, have enacted similar hardware price hikes in the EU and other markets in recent months.
• Apple can certainly afford to weather any economic storms better than most, if not all, of its competitors. In its last earnings announcement from July, Apple said it had a record Q3 with $19.6 billion in services revenue, a 12% year-over-year increase.
• The company remains the most valuable in the world with a market cap of more than $2.3 trillion.

Apple critics are not pleased. Naturally, a price hike with little explanation and on such short notice is going to rankle Apple's usual detractors in the developer community, including Fortnite maker Epic Games. But the criticisms have grown especially pointed given the current economic climate.

• “These increases were made without the input or consent of app developers, which highlights the extent of Apple’s market power. In no other industry can a business single-handedly increase the prices of another business’s products,” wrote Rick VanMeter, the executive director for the nonprofit Coalition for App Fairness, of which Epic, Match Group, and Spotify are members.
• Epic CEO Tim Sweeney had harsh words, too. “Imagine if a landlord told their small business tenant they had to increase their prices without any say in the matter or anywhere else to go,” he said in a statement yesterday. “That is what Apple is doing to developers for no other reason than to pad Apple’s bottom line.”
• “Developers don't want to raise their app prices in the EU and UK. Consumers don't want app price increases in the EU and UK. Central banks fighting inflation don't want app price inflation,” Sweeney wrote in a follow-up tweet yesterday. “But Apple is raising developers' prices against developers' wishes.”

Apple is no stranger to sudden price increases. For decades, the iPhone maker has exercised near-total control of its software ecosystems, including the digital storefronts it has operated since the days of iTunes.

• You might remember when Apple infamously raised the price of newer, more popular MP3s on the iTunes Store from 99 cents to $1.29. The move, a concession to the music industry, helped labels sell more albums after years of complaints that the era of iTunes pushed consumers toward buying singles over albums. There was plenty of hand-wringing at the time, but nothing really changed. That is, until music streaming took off and individual song sales began to decline.

But there is no comparable distribution change for mobile apps or the App Store on the horizon. Apple sets the rules for commerce on iOS, and everyone must follow — so long as they want to reach iPhone customers.

— Nick Statt