How Russian services restrain prices despite the rise in the dollar: comments from market players
Russian developers and sellers of mobile content, services and games do not go in the wake of the dollar. Despite the fact that Apple raised the prices of iOS applications, they are in no hurry to do the same. The developers have received letters from Apple in which the company announces price increases in the App Store for applications for the iOS mobile platform and Mac OS-based computers. These changes are due to changes in exchange rates.
If the developers also raise prices, they are waiting for the outflow of customers. This can not be allowed, otherwise mobile services will lose the audience. Financial losses will not be long in coming and will exceed the losses associated with the exchange rate. Mobile applications on the iOS platform in Russia are becoming more expensive on average by 20-25% - from 59 to 79 rubles, from 119 to 149 rubles.
The Yandex.Music service froze the cost of a subscription to the iOS application for all its users in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Full access to Yandex.Music from mobile phones on iOS will cost even a bit cheaper than before - 149 rubles per month.
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Other market participants are also not going to raise prices for their products.
"Our position remains the same as last year during exchange rate changes: we do not change the cost of in-game purchases, as we are sure that this will negatively affect any game and players," the head of the mobile direction of Mail.ru Group told Kommersant Alexander Enin.
The Dream Industries holding ( DI ; Zvooq music project, Bookmate online library, Theory and Practice educational service) took similar actions.
Yandex recognizes that price freezing is a temporary action: “Sooner or later we will have to increase the cost of a subscription. But we will keep current prices as long as possible. ” Application developers choose the lesser of two evils: increase the cost of a subscription and face the outflow of users or reduce it and get less revenue, explains the situation with DI Director Mikhail Ilyichev.
According to the pricing rules in the AppStore and iTunes, developers, unlike Google Play, cannot choose an arbitrary price, but use a special pricing grid with tiers. The price is first set in dollars and then converted into local currency. For example, to buy a sword in a game or an album in iTunes, tiers will mean $ 0.99, $ 1.99 or $ 2.99, and so on.
“This is normal for one-time purchases, but inconvenient for subscriptions, because when you sign up a user for permanent renewable payments, he agrees to pay, say, 169 rubles, explains Mr. Illichiov. “Tier $ 2.99 was equal to 169 rubles a few days ago, and when it rises to 229 rubles, as it is now after a revaluation, you cannot automatically debit this money next month from the user.”
According to the head of DI, all services risk a subscriber base, since conventionally half of the customers may not want to re-sign at a higher price.
To counter this, services have only one opportunity - to transfer the cost of a subscription to another, cheaper type of tier, market participants say. According to them, almost all subscription services, who are active in Russia, do this. On the other hand, it hits Apple for revenues, which charges a 30% commission on each user payment.
Ilya Sachkov, founder and CEO of Group IB (the service is sold from the ruble zone):
Alexey Krainov, General Director of RiotGames in the Russian Federation and the CIS (in-game payments for rubles):
Sergey Zemkov, Managing Director of Kaspersky Lab in Russia, the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia:
If the developers also raise prices, they are waiting for the outflow of customers. This can not be allowed, otherwise mobile services will lose the audience. Financial losses will not be long in coming and will exceed the losses associated with the exchange rate. Mobile applications on the iOS platform in Russia are becoming more expensive on average by 20-25% - from 59 to 79 rubles, from 119 to 149 rubles.
The Yandex.Music service froze the cost of a subscription to the iOS application for all its users in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Full access to Yandex.Music from mobile phones on iOS will cost even a bit cheaper than before - 149 rubles per month.
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Other market participants are also not going to raise prices for their products.
"Our position remains the same as last year during exchange rate changes: we do not change the cost of in-game purchases, as we are sure that this will negatively affect any game and players," the head of the mobile direction of Mail.ru Group told Kommersant Alexander Enin.
The Dream Industries holding ( DI ; Zvooq music project, Bookmate online library, Theory and Practice educational service) took similar actions.
Yandex recognizes that price freezing is a temporary action: “Sooner or later we will have to increase the cost of a subscription. But we will keep current prices as long as possible. ” Application developers choose the lesser of two evils: increase the cost of a subscription and face the outflow of users or reduce it and get less revenue, explains the situation with DI Director Mikhail Ilyichev.
According to the pricing rules in the AppStore and iTunes, developers, unlike Google Play, cannot choose an arbitrary price, but use a special pricing grid with tiers. The price is first set in dollars and then converted into local currency. For example, to buy a sword in a game or an album in iTunes, tiers will mean $ 0.99, $ 1.99 or $ 2.99, and so on.
“This is normal for one-time purchases, but inconvenient for subscriptions, because when you sign up a user for permanent renewable payments, he agrees to pay, say, 169 rubles, explains Mr. Illichiov. “Tier $ 2.99 was equal to 169 rubles a few days ago, and when it rises to 229 rubles, as it is now after a revaluation, you cannot automatically debit this money next month from the user.”
According to the head of DI, all services risk a subscriber base, since conventionally half of the customers may not want to re-sign at a higher price.
To counter this, services have only one opportunity - to transfer the cost of a subscription to another, cheaper type of tier, market participants say. According to them, almost all subscription services, who are active in Russia, do this. On the other hand, it hits Apple for revenues, which charges a 30% commission on each user payment.
Ilya Sachkov, founder and CEO of Group IB (the service is sold from the ruble zone):
Just a decrease or increase in price can not solve the problem. The price must match the value of the product and be competitive. If the price increase is caused by the real market situation and corresponds to the value of the product, and there is a market for further sales, then there is no need to be afraid. There will be some kind of churn, but it pays off at short range. If the product has not changed, the prices on the market are the same, but the price of the product has increased, then this is strange (and if there are no potential customers). In general, I am in favor of analyzing the market, the values ​​and analysis of buyers (for example, the number of potential free customers).
Alexey Krainov, General Director of RiotGames in the Russian Federation and the CIS (in-game payments for rubles):
In our approach, the cost of game items does not directly affect the retention or outflow of players. League of Legends works on Free2Play models, we have skills, skills, and everything that players buy affects only the personalization of champion images and player profile. This means that in the limit you can become a LoL world champion without paying a single ruble / dollar. The value of our items does not ultimately affect the retention, but the amount of revenue. Here we are guided by our basic approach - the price should be such that the player can positively evaluate what he received for the money he paid. This is a certain balance that we always try to stick to.
Sergey Zemkov, Managing Director of Kaspersky Lab in Russia, the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia:
The cost of Kaspersky Lab's personal products in Russia has not been revised for more than 5 years, since 2010. Thus, despite the crisis trends of recent years, Kaspersky Lab continued to maintain prices for Russian users at the same level. In 2016, the prices for the Kaspersky Lab personal products line will be updated, but the cost growth will not be significant - within 10%.
The prices of a number of Kaspersky Lab's corporate solutions will also change (depending on the product, prices will increase from 10% to 20%), due to both the update of the product line and external market factors.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/298122/
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