On March 30, according to Bloomberg in the United States, Apple was once again subjected to a new class action lawsuit in the Netherlands due to the Apple tax problem in the App Store. According to the Consumer Competition Claims Foundation, the lawsuit would bring apple a sky-high fine of up to $5.5 billion .
The lawsuit points out that Apple used the monopoly position of the App Store to charge a 30% commission on every transaction of app developers, forcing developers to raise the price of software, and the cost of consumer transactions has increased accordingly. Since September 2009, the foundation has been calling on users who have purchased apps in the App Store to join the class action. Now that more than a decade has passed, more and more people have participated in the litigation, which is why the amount of compensation that Apple needs to compensate is so exaggerated.
At present, Apple has not responded to this matter, according to Apple's style, it should not care too much about such litigation, and it is even more unlikely that Apple will lose money. In fact, Apple has encountered the same anti-monopoly lawsuits in many countries and regions such as the United States, Russia, and Europe, with fines exceeding billions, but there has been no result so far, and it is really too difficult for Apple to cancel apple taxes or pay fines.
The Netherlands filed a lawsuit against Apple at the beginning of the year, requiring apple to open third-party payment channels to local dating software developers and charge Apple a weekly fine of 5 million euros if it fails to comply with the regulations. Apple was fined for a few weeks and had to compromise. But in a new round of litigation, Apple denied its previous practices and refused to make changes to the App Store in the Netherlands. As of now, Apple has been fined ten weeks by the Netherlands, with a cumulative amount of up to 350 million yuan.
As the world's most profitable company, Apple's market value is much higher than That of Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, and its annual net profit is far behind that of several other giants. Its total revenue in fiscal 2021 was US$365.8 billion, and its net profit reached US$94.7 billion (about 602 billion yuan). Among them, iPhone and related accessories are the main revenue channels, followed by the App Store. The apple tax can bring hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue to Apple every year, and it is absolutely impossible to cancel it.
Of course, today, more and more countries are fiercely opposed to the Apple tax, and Apple may also compromise slightly under pressure and make some adjustments. Hopefully, the apple tax will end soon, and fruit fans will no longer need to spend more money.