Remember that living costs are less than that in the Euro Zone, app prices will be lower in China.
69p here equates to feeding a family of four for two days over there.
Profits will inevitably be less!
Apple iOS developers in China are struggling to make a living from the platform, with App Store revenues in the region accounting for just three per cent of the global total, despite scooping 18 per cent of worldwide downloads. A new report from Shanghai-based analyst Stenvall Skoeld (via TNW) claims that Apple and its …
"One reason is that a large amount of iOS devices in China are ‘jailbroken’, allowing users to download apps for free from alternative ‘app stores’."
Perhaps rather than "can't pay" it is more a question of "won't pay" or "I want to choose"? If the amount of jailbreaking is on the sort of scale hinted at by the article it is possible that the grey market resellers in China (a very significant part of iPhone sales in that country) are routinely offering this as a service to their customers*. If that is the case and the alternative apps are widely available (as implied in the article), then unless Apple can establish the kind of control/influence over its retail distribution in China that it enjoys in Europe and the US, it's app-store model may be under far greater threat in China than anyone (myself included) had so far realised.
*Or a veritable cottage industry of jailbreakers/rooters has arisen - whatever, the end result is the same.