Australia's court orders Apple to open iPhone outside rails free from March 1, 2027; US commission down 18%
Australia's Federal Court has ordered Apple to let Australians install apps from rival stores and the web from March 1, 2027, charging nothing for the outside rails. The US already shows what that costs: Apple's commission revenue there is down 18% this year.
Richard Tang · 3 min read
Australia's Federal Court has ordered Apple+0.47% — Apple, up 0.47 percent today to open the iPhone's outside rails. From March 1, 2027, users with Australian Apple Accounts can install apps from rival stores and straight from the web, and Apple may not charge anyone for the privilege 12.
Justice Jonathan Beach handed down the orders on October 21, after finding Apple had misused its market power in iOS app distribution and payments 1. Fortnite, the game whose 2020 eviction from the App Store started this fight, was back on Australian iPhones the next day, and its publisher, Epic Games, says its own store will follow 3. Apple will request a stay and appeal 4.
Strip the legalese and this is a Services story. Services, the apps-and-subscriptions segment that carries Apple's highest margins and underpins its premium valuation, is what Australia just repriced 58. The bill is already arriving, and the people paying it are Apple's shareholders.
The safety checks stay, the toll goes
The Australian order goes further than Brussels or the US injunction did. Apple cannot charge developers for access to outside distribution, and it cannot take anything from purchases routed through rival payment systems or the web for apps sold outside its store 2. Inside the App Store, it may charge no more for digital payments than it does for processing the sale of a physical good 2.
The order also bars Apple from forcing developers to report those transactions, a condition it still imposes in Brazil and Japan 1. Security scanning and notarization, Apple's check that outside software is safe to run, survive; the commission does not 12. Epic, which started this fight in 2020, also recovers 85% of its trial costs 1.
What the opening buys goes to builders. From March 2027 a developer with a website will be able to reach Australian iPhones without Apple's review or its fee 1; that is how Mac software has always shipped. Epic has been in court since 2020 buying that rail 1.
The take rate is already coming down
None of this is hypothetical: the take rate, the share of each sale Apple keeps, is already falling. Services ran a 75.6% gross margin last quarter and still missed forecasts, with finance chief Kevan Parekh naming the US App Store changes among the causes 56. Appfigures, an app-market data firm, puts Apple's US commission revenue down 18% this year, and Brazil and Japan are shrinking under their own new rules 7.
In August Apple settled its EU fight, cutting the standard commission to 26%; outside-store distribution in Europe is now a flat 5% 8. The company's latest filing warns it "may not earn a commission at all" on alternative payments 5. "We think the market is going to reprice the durability of the services business take rate," said legal analyst Nicholas Rodelli of Washington Analysis 5.
The toll Apple can charge, repriced regime by regime
- Estimate
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Legacy standard rate | 30% |
| EU, in the App Store | 26% |
| EU, link-out purchase | 15% |
| EU, outside the store | 5% |
| US, outside payments (estimate) | 0% |
| Australia, outside the store (Mar 2027) (estimate) | 0% |
The stay protects exactly one quarter
Apple's request to pause enforcement is the next ruling in this case. Grant it and the old toll survives the December quarter and its holiday sales; deny it and the March 1, 2027, deadline holds 12. The US Supreme Court has separately agreed to review the Epic injunction that already cut Apple's take on outside payments to zero there 57. One stay ruling and one Supreme Court decision will set how fast the rest of the toll falls.
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