How Apple’s Store Changes Can Benefit App Developers

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Dan Burkhart, CEO of Recurly, a subscription management and billing platform that works with more than 2,000 companies, said that many of the app developers he regularly communicates with played with enthusiasm Friday afternoon. He said larger companies with “established momentum and notoriety” would likely benefit from being able to refer loyal customers elsewhere.

Match Group, maker of dating apps Tinder and Hinge, is set to pay more than $500 million in commissions this year to Apple and Google, which control a similar app store for phones running Android software. Gary Swidler, Match’s chief financial officer, said. The company was already considering ways to use Friday’s decision to reduce that bill as much as possible, including charging less for paid subscriptions on one of its websites, he said.

One analyst estimated the change could save Match $80 million a year, but Mr Swidler said there were too many questions to make such an estimate.

“Depending on what the rate of purchase will be, it will help us in terms of profitability and allow us to invest more in our business and also allow us to pass on the benefits to consumers,” he said.

Michael Love, founder and CEO of a Chinese dictionary app called Pleco, said the possibility of avoiding commissions — which Apple pays 15 percent — is good news. Better? The possibility of interacting directly with customers in ways that App Store rules prevent, such as sending promotional emails, issuing refunds and searching for old orders.

“I’m excited about Apple’s non-interference payment possibilities,” he said.

Mr. Love, 39, said he couldn’t get a lot of deals with other dictionary publishers because they didn’t want to pay commissions to both Apple and him, and lost a lot of money.

Now, by avoiding Apple fees and working directly with publishers, it can potentially transform its business and become a “boutique e-book retailer,” said Mr. That said, he could increase his income from about $500,000 to $5 million or $10 million a year.

“It makes it possible for little guys to compete,” he said.

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