Apple’s EU Commission Cuts Haven’t Benefited Consumers, Study Finds

The forced reduction in commissions for software sold through Apple’s App Store brings virtually no benefits to users. The developers generally do not pass on the reduced expenses.

According to Apple, EU law does nothing

This is the result of a study commissioned by Apple from the analysis company Analysis Group Investigation. The background was the fee reductions in the App Store introduced in March 2024, which came about as part of the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA). Contrary to the EU Commission’s expectations, the prices for apps and in-app purchases for consumers have not fallen, it said.

According to the research, which evaluated around 41 million App Store transactions from 21,000 paid apps and in-app purchases, prices remained unchanged 91 percent of the time, even though average fees for developers were reduced by about 10 percentage points. In some cases the prices have even increased.

The five largest app providers in the EU did not adjust their prices at all and kept the additional income themselves. In total, developers saved around 20.1 million euros in commission fees, of which over 86 percent went to companies outside the EU. When developers reduced their prices, the reduction was only 2.5 percent on average – an effect that Apple said was also seen in previous reduced fee programs.

In a statement, Apple emphasized that the DMA had missed its goals: Instead of more competition and lower prices, the regulation brought “less security, less data protection and a worse user experience”. In addition, new hurdles would arise for start-ups and innovations, while consumers would be exposed to greater risks.

Narrow database

However, the study refers exclusively to data from the App Store and was created on behalf of Apple. Prices in alternative app marketplaces or on the web that the DMA enables were not taken into account. According to Apple, a long-term analysis over eight months also showed no significant price changes. The so-called core technology fee for apps with more than one million initial installations per year also had no influence on the results.

Apple is also using the study to criticize the regulatory consequences of the DMA. Several planned features of iOS 18 and iOS 26, including iPhone mirroring or automatic Wi-Fi sync, have been postponed or disabled in the EU. The company justifies this with data protection concerns; the DMA would allow third-party developers to access user data such as WLAN histories or user names.