After decades of complaints about it, Apple will finally get a commission from in-app purchases made from iPhone Games distributed via WeChat — the massive Chinese social media app owned by Tencent.
Apple has its own store on Tencent's WeChat, and the two companies have previously agreed terms over users abilities to send money to one another as tips. However, the issue is that WeChat works as a single, enormous, multi-function super-app.
Where US users are used to buying individual games as apps on the App Store, Chinese users do just about everything through this single WeChat app. It's not just about messaging, it's an entire app ecosystem that Apple was not getting any revenue from.
That may seem like Apple's problem, but as now reported by Bloomberg, Tencent and Apple have agreed what the former previously called "economically sustainable" terms. It concerns the use of Mini Games, contained entirely within WeChat, and used by 1.4 billion people every month.
In part because of the Mini Games, Tencent earned $4.5 billion during the September quarter. Apple is about to cut into that a bit, and take a 15% cut of purchases within WeChat Mini Games and apps, because of the new Mini App Partner Program.
For users, it means that there will now be a quicker, more straightforward way to buy apps or games. This won't be a complete take, as developers are still allowed to take payments outside the app for game consumables, and the like.
The new payment path has less friction, keeping users in the app instead of getting kicked out to a website to pay.
To have Apple handle payments, though, developers must agree to certain terms. The one example given by sources so far concerns Apple's child protection features over sharing childrens' age range.
Neither Apple nor Tencent have commented publicly.
Updated November 13, 1:14 PM ET: The WeChat Mini situation was reported incorrectly by Bloomberg. The "deal" is actually the terms of the Mini App Partner Program, announced later on Thursday.
