“In a note sent out to iTunes Connect members on Wednesday, Apple announced an imminent prices increase for Canada, Norway and all countries in the European Union, as well as an undisclosed change in app cost for Russian customers,” Mikey Campbell reports for AppleInsider.
“According to the notification sent out by Apple’s App Store team,” Campbell reports, “prices on the company’s digital storefront will be increased in the EU, Canada, and Norway, while customers in Iceland are set to see a decrease.”
“Russia will also receive price changes, though Apple failed to provide detail on the matter,” Campbell reports. “Modifications will take effect within 36 hours, the note said.”
MacDailyNews Note: Apple’s message, verbatim:
Dear ___,
Within the next 36 hours, prices on the App Store will increase for all territories in the European Union as well as in Canada and Norway, decrease in Iceland, and change in Russia. These changes are being made to account for adjustments in value-added tax (VAT) rates and foreign exchange rates.
We will simultaneously update the Pricing Matrix in Rights and Pricing in My Apps on iTunes Connect.
We will also update the iOS Paid Applications and Mac OS X Paid Applications agreements, which will be available in Agreements, Tax, and Banking.
If you have any questions, contact us.
Regards,
The App Store team
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
“Ruble go down, pricey go up. Gold is best.”
Well, precious metals hold their value while economies go south. But when economies rally, precious metals are left behind, again because they hold their value and again don’t respond to economies.
Ruble went up, so Apple is not “rising” prices in Russia, but “changing”, which is code for lowering.
Thanks Apple. We are moving to a trade war because of this in Canada. We are going to hit Americans with the full price of our beaver tails, maple syrup and Mountie Musical Ride admissions. /s
We are perpetually screwed on taxes and HST in Canada by our own government, by UPS, Fedex and other couriers for criminally high brokerage fees for items coming from US sellers and by US companies that inflate the cost of goods in Canada beyond issues of currency exchange.
But a modest increase to account for the huge drop in the CDN vs US dollar over the past 2 years is understandable. Perhaps this will spur some growth in Canadian app developers as a result.
We’re also going to charge for all the Snow we ship south.
Changes went into effect on the Canadian store after midnight EST. $0.99 –> $1.19, $1.99 –> $2.29, etc. Oddly, there’s still a few $0.99 apps.
I don’t see it affecting sales of cheaper apps too much, but more expensive ones like Garmin’s GPS apps saw a big jump from $59.99 to $69.99, they’re definitely going to take a hit. Maybe not from the smaller Canadian market, but Europe for sure.
Still a little bit sad. Prices have been $.99 in Canada since the App Store came out.
I was surprised at the change in Canadian prices. But the US dollar has rallied again against the Canadian dollar. The rate is currently 1 Canadian dollar worth $0.85 US dollar.
(Recall that after the induction of the 2007 worldwide economic depression, the Canadian dollar was worth MORE than the US dollar. I use the year 2007 because that is when the documented economy breaking financial behavior began).