Apple Courts Developers In China With New App Program

Apple has begun a program, based in China, that will look to help Chinese developers in their bid to create new applications, according to Reuters.

The newswire reported that the app development program is geared toward the tech giant’s efforts to boost its services business. The fact that the app development program is housed and focused on China shows the importance of this market for China.

The program, as reported, will feature lectures and workshops, along with networking sessions.

The company has said that more than 2.5 million developers for Apple hail from China — spanning Taiwan, Hong Kong and the mainland.

And, as noted in this space and elsewhere, Apple has been striving to increase its services presence to broaden its ecosystem even as iPhone and hardware sales slow in China and beyond, with particular torque desired across apps, media and software.

As Karen Webster wrote some time ago, as far back as the end of the 2018, the strategy may be a risky one as it eyes subscriptions tied to services and apps.

As Webster wrote back then, “subscription models, of course, are the ‘it’ thing in payments, and Apple’s revenue boost was to further incent developers to hop onto that recurring revenue bandwagon for the digital goods intended to be consumed on the Apple platform — books, news and media content, games, productivity tools used digitally, streaming music or video services. Apple provided a very thorough set of operating guidelines for how developers could do that, including some 200 permutations of subscription price points that were all inbounds.”

Beyond that, earlier this week, Evercore ISI has said the services business has likely seen rising revenues, with growth seen in China. The move comes in the wake of an accelerator program that debuted in India two years ago. Apple, noted the newswire, also has been striving to make its iPhones more affordable for consumers, particularly in the Chinese market, even as it navigates the ripple effects of a trade war that has led at least some suppliers to move production out of China.