Mr. Ternus, Apple Should Match China’s Goodwill with Fair Treatment

On the very evening that John Ternus took over as Apple’s CEO, he swiftly opened an account on Weibo, greeting Chinese users with a bilingual “你好 hello.” The move was widely seen as a friendly gesture from Apple’s new leadership toward the Chinese market, carrying on the approachable public persona cultivated by his predecessor, Tim Cook.

On the surface, at least, it was a well-judged piece of localized public relations, conveying Apple’s respect for Chinese consumers and the Chinese market. The nearly 10,000 comments under Ternus’ Weibo post were overwhelmingly friendly. In a sense, this also reflected the unusually favorable reception Apple enjoys both in the Chinese market and in the country’s public discourse — a treatment that often stands in marked contrast to what Chinese smartphone makers and their executives receive.

Yet beneath such gestures on social media lies a striking disconnect in Apple’s actual business practices. On one side are the friendly overtures to the Chinese public, from Cook to Ternus. On the other is Apple’s continued application of markedly different standards in China when it comes to commercial rules and app developers’ interests.

Chinese developers and users have good reason to feel uneasy about this discrepancy.

To be fair, during its years in China, Apple has played a significant role in the upgrading of the country’s electronics industry. It brought advanced global manufacturing standards, quality-control systems and supply-chain management practices to China, while introducing Chinese consumers to a new generation of smartphone experiences. Many domestic component manufacturers accumulated technological expertise through their participation in Apple’s supply chain and eventually grew into globally competitive suppliers.

But China’s contribution to Apple has been far greater than many people may realize.

On the supply side, more than 80 percent of Apple’s top 200 global suppliers operate manufacturing facilities in China, providing the highly efficient production network that underpins Apple’s global product deliveries. On the demand side, Apple generated $64.4 billion in revenue from Greater China in fiscal 2025, equivalent to roughly 432.7 billion yuan — comparable to Xiaomi’s entire annual global revenue. China is Apple’s third-largest regional market by revenue and a crucial market for some of its most profitable businesses, generating substantial and sustained cash flow for the company.

The App Store ecosystem makes China’s importance even clearer. In 2025, the global App Store ecosystem facilitated $1.4 trillion in developer billings and sales, with China alone accounting for $562 billion. The size of China’s ecosystem has doubled since 2019, making it Apple’s largest developer ecosystem worldwide. While Chinese developers earn their livelihoods on Apple’s platform, they also continuously enrich the iOS ecosystem with content and services, reinforcing the appeal of Apple products to users.

With both an enormous consumer base and a powerful, comprehensive industrial supply chain, China is a market whose importance to Apple can hardly be overstated. As Apple executives themselves have acknowledged, there would be no Apple as we know it today without China.

Tim Cook has said plenty of nice things about China, and Ternus will presumably continue to do so. But Apple’s actions in recent years have increasingly responded to China’s goodwill with a double standard.

In mid-August this year, Apple revised its business terms in the European Union for the third time, eliminating the Core Technology Fee, the Initial Acquisition Fee and the Store Services Fee. Under the new four-tier fee structure, in-app purchases are subject to commissions of 26 or 15 percent; third-party payments within apps, 20 or 10 percent; external-link payments, 15 or 10 percent; and distribution through third-party app stores, just a 5 percent Core Technology Commission. The new regime will take full effect on October 1.

What is particularly noteworthy is that, following these changes, Apple’s EU fee structure has become remarkably similar to the regimes implemented in Japan in December 2025 and Brazil in June 2026. Apple has effectively converged on a broadly unified fee structure across these three overseas markets. Developers there can access minimum rates of roughly 5 to 10 percent and choose among multiple commercial channels according to their needs, including Apple’s in-app purchasing system, third-party payments, external payment links and third-party app-store distribution.

An Apple store in China Apple

China, however, has been left out of this more favorable framework.

Chinese iOS developers are still subject to a minimum commission of 12 percent under Apple’s Small Business Program. Compared with the lowest rates available in those overseas markets, the gap ranges from 7 to 20 percentage points. This creates a peculiar situation: Apple publicly claims to offer preferential treatment to China, yet Chinese developers in practice shoulder a substantially heavier overall burden than their counterparts in the EU, Japan and Brazil. They have no alternative payment or distribution channels and remain confined to a single set of rules.

The irony is that Apple only recently made an explicit written commitment to the Chinese market.

On March 13 this year, Apple announced that it would reduce the standard commission rate for the mainland China App Store from 30 percent to 25 percent, while cutting the Small Business Program rate from 15 percent to 12 percent. The announcement explicitly pledged that the rates available to Chinese developers would “always be no higher than the overall rate levels in other markets.”

By that commitment, Chinese developers should reasonably expect an overall fee structure comparable to those available in Brazil, Japan and the EU, including access to multiple distribution and payment options. Apple, however, has yet to deliver on that promise.

Across the world’s major economies, nearly every significant move by Apple to loosen its rules, lower commissions or open alternative distribution and payment channels has come under intense external regulatory pressure.

In the United States, Apple has been locked in a five-year legal battle and gradually compelled by its own judicial system to change its practices. In the European Union, Apple faced two penalties under the Digital Markets Act totaling more than €2.34 billion before revising its commercial terms under regulatory pressure. South Korea passed legislation prohibiting Apple from forcing developers to use its in-app purchasing system. Japan used legislation to require Apple to open multiple commercial channels. Brazil’s competition regulator issued an administrative order backed by potential penalties of 150 million reais, forcing Apple to adjust its local policies.

Mainland China presents a striking contrast.

To date, Apple has neither received an administrative antitrust penalty in mainland China nor been subjected to a formal antitrust investigation. All of its rule changes in the Chinese market have instead emerged from dialogue and voluntary corporate announcements. Behind this lies China’s longstanding commitment to maintaining a welcoming business environment.

For nearly half a century, extending goodwill toward foreign investment has been a consistent feature of China’s development-oriented governance and outward-looking economic strategy. Apple is an especially revealing example of the extent of that openness.

While the United States has imposed sustained sanctions and restrictions on Huawei and excluded Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE from its domestic market, China has not responded by adopting equivalent discriminatory measures against Apple. Apple continues to enjoy the full right to compete fairly in China. Its smartphones, computers and other products have even been eligible for government-backed consumer subsidy programs.

CFP

But goodwill does not mean unlimited indulgence.

China’s approach is grounded in clear practical considerations: attracting high-quality foreign investment, maintaining global supply-chain cooperation, preserving the foundations of China-US economic relations, and securing external resources and channels of exchange that benefit domestic industrial development. This institutional goodwill was never intended as a private exemption written specifically for Apple, much less as justification for applying a double standard to Chinese developers.

Among the millions of registered iOS developers in China, the overwhelming majority are small teams and individual developers. They are ordinary market participants. They comply with Apple’s platform rules, pay commissions in full and on time, trust the commitments Apple makes publicly, and expect a fair and equitable business environment in return.

Apple cannot pocket every policy and market dividend China has offered while leaving millions of ordinary Chinese developers subject to discriminatory fee arrangements. China’s goodwill should not become a shield for unequal commercial terms.

Meanwhile, Apple no longer enjoys the unassailable position it once held in the Chinese consumer market.

Huawei’s Kirin chips have returned. HarmonyOS has achieved breakthroughs at the foundational technological level and built an integrated hardware-software ecosystem based on a logic similar to Apple’s own. HarmonyOS has already overtaken iOS in domestic market share. Xiaomi is advancing its Human × Car × Home ecosystem, connecting smartphones, vehicles and smart-home products into a comprehensive user experience. Vivo and OPPO continue to invest heavily in core technologies such as imaging and performance, building deep consumer recognition and loyalty in the mass market.

Hardware is evolving at extraordinary speed, while China’s domestic software and hardware ecosystems continue to expand. For Chinese consumers today, the absence of an Apple product would hardly constitute a fundamental disruption to everyday life. As Apple’s revenue in China declines, the company needs to recognize that the market around it has changed.

Against the broader backdrop of continuing China-US technological competition, China will not abandon its commitment to opening up or its policy of treating law-abiding foreign businesses fairly. There should be no doubt about that.

But Apple under John Ternus needs to understand what China’s goodwill actually means. It is not a privilege for companies to exploit at will, nor can it serve as an excuse for treating local developers differently.

Around the world, many of Apple’s concessions have been extracted through legislation, court rulings and regulatory orders. In China, Apple has a more dignified option: voluntarily honor the commitments it has already made publicly, rather than relying on performative gestures of friendship while repeatedly testing the limits of China’s goodwill.

Reciprocity remains the foundation of business. Respect in a market cannot be a one-way gift. The greater the benefits a company derives from a market, the greater the responsibilities it should be prepared to shoulder.

Having benefited enormously from the Chinese market, Apple should offer commercial rules consistent with prevailing global standards. Friendly gestures may make for good PR. But what truly matters is whether Apple plays fair — with every developer, in every market.