Apple set to hike app prices in Australia & some other countries

Apple set to hike app prices in Australia & some other countriesApple Inc is all set to start charging higher prices for apps available in its iTunes Store in Australia and a number of other countries, emerging media reports suggest.

Macrumors has published an email sent by Apple to developers declaring its decision to increase the retail prices of apps in Australia, Indonesia, Turkey, India and South Africa.

The Cupertino, California-based tech giant explained that fluctuations in exchange rates forced it to increase the app prices. The increase in prices has been decided following a year of currency fluctuations. On Tuesday morning, the Australian dollar was trading at 0.93 per US dollar.

The email sent by the Cupertino firm also declared that the increase in prices would be effective within 24 hours.

However, prices of apps in Israel and in some cases in New Zealand will reportedly come down, again to adjust for differences in exchange rates.

Apple's decision to increase prices of the apps in Australia comes nearly three years after the Cupertino firm was applauded for decreasing its App Store prices by up to 25 per cent. It may also be noted here that, the company was recent accused of shifting around Aus$9 billion in untaxed profits from Australia to Ireland over the past ten years.

According to Apple's most recent quarterly earnings statement, iTunes/Software business accounted for $4.397 billion of its total quarterly revenue of $57.59 billion. The figure represents a year-on-year growth of 19 per cent. During the same quarter, the company's payment to developers jumped more than 100 per cent to $2 billion.