Domestic Largest Music Platform 'Melon' Raises Fees by 10%... Impact of Google's Mandatory In-App Payment

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Melon, the largest music platform in South Korea, will increase the subscription prices of its Google Play version application (app) by 10%. Due to Google's mandatory in-app payment policy, prices on other app markets such as the App Store and One Store, as well as web payments, will remain unchanged.

On the 7th, Melon announced through an in-app notice that "due to the application of Google's in-app payment commission policy, the prices of Melon subscriptions within the Android app will inevitably increase starting June 29."

Users who purchase Melon subscriptions before the price increase and maintain their recurring payments will continue to use Melon at the pre-increase prices.

The Melon subscription prices affected by this increase are as follows: Mobile Streaming Club from 6,900 KRW to 7,600 KRW, Streaming Club from 7,900 KRW to 8,700 KRW, Streaming Plus from 10,900 KRW to 12,000 KRW, Hi-Fi Streaming from 12,000 KRW to 13,200 KRW, among a total of eight products. All are recurring payment products with a 10% increase rate.

A Melon representative said, "Due to the application of Google's in-app payment commission, we will inevitably raise the prices of Melon subscriptions within the Android app starting June 29," and added, "Subscriptions can still be purchased at pre-increase prices on Melon's PC web and mobile web, so we recommend purchasing subscriptions that are automatically billed monthly through the web environment."

Starting in June, Google announced that as part of its mandatory in-app payment policy, it will either increase commissions by up to 30% or remove apps from Google Play that do not adopt third-party in-app payment methods (with commissions up to 26%). This price increase is also a consequence of the mandatory in-app payment policy.

Meanwhile, this price increase is expected to further narrow the gap between Melon, a native music service app, and Google's music streaming app YouTube Music. According to app analytics service WiseApp, Melon was the most used music service app in South Korea in May with 6.49 million users, but the gap with second-place YouTube Music (5.86 million users) has narrowed.

According to WiseApp's survey released in April 2021, monthly Melon users numbered 5.31 million, while YouTube Music had 2.98 million users. The user gap between Melon and YouTube Music has decreased from 2.33 million to 630,000.