The business of Apple’s App Store works different in each country. For most part, I think it’s because the customer’s mindset is quite different.
Look at Germany and the US for example. In Germany not everyone owns a credit card. I know a lot of people, which don’t have one and are happy about it. As far as I can tell, it’s a whole different ball game in the US. Most people have a credit card or even multiple. That alone doesn’t say much about why the App Store works different in those two countries. However, it gives you an idea, how people think about money and how willing they are to spend it on your App.
Let’s take a look at another sign of the differences in terms of App Stores: customer ratings. Apple’s App Store, both on iOS and Mac, lets you rate Apps, based on a number of stars. In addition to that, you can add a comment to further express what you like or don’t like about an App. I’ve always taken ratings quite seriously and I hate the fact, that you cannot respond to customers having issues with your App, but that’s a topic for another blog post.
Take a look at the ratings of the recently released Apple Face Time App for Mac:
The first screenshot obviously shows ratings of the German App Store on Mac, the second of the US. You might think those ratings are the result of a technical problem, maybe only happening in Germany and not the US. Let me tell you, they are not! Most of the comments in the German App Store, below the ratings, complain about Apple charging 0,79€ resp. $0.99!
It think this is a conclusive example, that the App Store model in Germany is so much different from the one in the US! If you read the comments below the ratings, you can see, that customers in Germany are thinking twice about whether to spend 0.79€ on an App or not.
So what can you as a developer or small iOS shop do about this? Unfortunately, there isn’t much you can do. Apple doesn’t let you set different prices in each country. You are basically stuck with the workaround of submitting two different Apps with the same feature set to the App Store and limit its availability to certain countries. That way you can individually configure prices. However, that leaves you with maintain multiple Apps - nothing I would want to do. I’d rather live with the same price across different countries, until Apple comes up with a solution.
Update:
Seems like there was a technical issue with the German version of Face Time, which basically renders the example for my case invalid. However, I still think the mindset of customers in each country is different, although I don’t have any example to make a case.