Apple (AAPL) May Adjust App Store Revenue-Sharing Model Amid Ongoing Talks with Content Providers

Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) may cut the amount of profit it receives from App Store sales as it looks to woo more content providers and ease regulatory concerns that its abusing its position of power.

As mentioned earlier, the Financial Times said Friday afternoon that Apple paid $10 billion to app developers in 2014 and its 70/30 revenue split formula has been mimicked by many rivals and peers.

News comes as Apple is planning to debut its streaming music service at WWDC next week. Recent reports have the company still in talks with the three largest music studios. While Apple may not need to lock-in all three studios ahead of the streaming music launch, it would at least need one and be in final talks with the other two, or a similar story for locking in two and having one holdout.

One analyst noted that, due to thin margins in the music streaming segment, Apple's revenue sharing model might need to move to 95/5.

Apple is also in talks with television broadcasters about content. The company was originally going to announce a new Internet TV service next week, but stalled talks have pushed back that initiative.

It also wasn't speculated what sort of new revenue-sharing model Apple would propose, or whether it might be something tiered based on certain metrics (maybe overall popularity, in-app purchases, etc.). The latter part is purely our speculation.

Shares of Apple are down 0.4 percent.

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