Oliver Haslam·

Apple Halved Its App Store Fees To Get Amazon Prime Video Onto Its Devices

It appears that Amazon was able to get a special deal when it was hashing out the details that would ultimately bring Amazon Prime Video to the iPhone and Apple TV.

According to emails made public during the US antitrust subcommittee, Apple halved its usual 30% fee for in-app subscriptions.

Normally Apple would take a cool 30% of a first year’s subscription if purchased via the App Store. But Apple’s services chief Eddie Cue agreed with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos that a special deal would be put in place. And that’s ultimately what brought Amazon Prime Video to the App Store.

That ended a long stand-off that saw Amazon CEO Bezos say that his company was holding out for a better business deal. That’s ultimately happened, it appears, after Cue was able to seal a special deal.

This comes against a backdrop of developers and antitrust officials claiming that not all developers are treated equally, something CEO Tim Cook denied during questioning yesterday. However, this deal seems to suggest that if you’re big enough, you can call the shots. Something Amazon and Bezos can do but the majority of developers simply aren’t large enough to pull off.

Part of the deal also saw Apple products return to Amazon for the first time in years, something that Amazon reportedly expected to bring in as much as $3.2 billion in the first year of business.

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