From July, Google will lower the Android app market fee to 15%, which is half of the previous version. Small and medium-sized developers with sales of less than $1 million (approximately 1.1 billion won) are targeted. Google decided to charge a 30% fee for developers who exceed $1 million in sales only for those exceeding $1 million. In fact, all app developers that pay 30% of the existing app market fees will disappear. The reduction is much larger than the 15% fee cut for small and medium-sized developers of Apple, one of the two largest mountain ranges in the app ecosystem.
On the 15th, Google announced to the National Assembly that it would implement the’Google Play small and medium-sized developer support program’. From July 1 this year, a fee discount is provided to all developers who sell paid content on Google Play. This applies to both games and non-game apps.
According to Google Play Store statistics, developers with less than $1 million in sales account for 99% of all Google Play stores. It’s okay to say that it’s virtually all of the app developers. In addition, even for developers with more than 1 million dollars in sales, which is the remaining 1%, they only need to pay 30% commission for the excess of 1 million dollars or more.
For example, when sales were recorded at 1 billion won, in the past, you had to pay a fee of 300 million won, but in the future, you only have to pay 150 million won, which is a half-price fee.
Instead, domestic developers that record 2 billion won in annual sales on Google Play had to pay a fee of about 600 million won to Google Play, but now they only need to pay a fee of 450 million won.
Apple is also implementing a fee reduction policy from January 1 of this year, but it differs from Google in that the fee cut by half is applied only to’small and medium-sized developers’. For example, if the Apple App Store records annual sales of KRW 2 billion, app developers subject to the fee application are not included in the’small and medium sized’ and must pay a fee of KRW 600 million as it is.
Earlier, in November last year, Apple lowered the commission for small and medium-sized developers with annual sales of less than $100 from 30% to 15%. The $1 million standard for small and medium-sized developers is the amount excluding app fees from this year’s sales. Including app fees, this is equivalent to service companies with roughly 1.5 billion won in sales. At the time, Apple said that while reducing fees, developers such as webtoons, web novels, and games were naturally applicable, and most small and medium-sized developers could benefit from it.
Regarding this fee reduction policy, Google said, “The Google Play Store does not receive any fees for apps that are provided for free. It does not charge fees for apps that trade real goods such as Coupang and Market Kurly.” “We charge a fee only for content that is paid for in a fee, and even the fee for paid content is cut by half based on sales of 1 million dollars.”
In this regard, the ruling Democratic Party, which is the ruling party, welcomed Google’s position, but implied that it would not end the related discussion as it is. In a call with Maeil Economic Daily, Rep. Seung-Rae Cho, a secretary of the National Assembly Science and Technology Information Broadcasting and Communications Committee, said, “We welcome Google’s forward-looking decision. However, after Apple’s fee cut, it was predicted that Google would also cut the fee. The essence of forcing the company’s payment method to affiliated companies has not disappeared. This is the reason for continuing the related discussions,” he said.
[홍성용 기자]
[ⓒ 매일경제 & mk.co.kr, 무단전재 및 재배포 금지]