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After a hiatus of 5 years, Epic Games' Fortnite is again available on Apple's App Store in the US, and that too, while equipped with an off-app payments option. However, one Wall Street analyst is now citing the schematics of this option to declare that he is "less concerned" about the impact on Apple's top-line metric.
For the benefit of those who might not be aware, Apple had booted Fortnite off its app store back in 2020 for supporting an external payments option.
Earlier this month, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, ruled that Apple has violated a 2021 injunction order, which had posited that Apple could not block app developers from directing users towards external payment options.
For its part, Apple declared that it "strongly disagreed" with the decision, but communicated its willingness to comply with the order, pending the results of an appeal.
This brings us to the crux of the matter. Goldman Sachs' Michael Ng has come away "less concerned" after conducting an extensive review of Fortnite's off-app payments functionality.
The Goldman Sachs analyst believes that Fortnite's decision to show options for both in-app and off-app payment routes on the same page is a nod to the frictions that are inherent in processing external payments.
Also, Fortnite has not made available direct discounts for external payments, while indirect discounts (where 20 percent of a user's Epic Rewards are deposited with a 14-day delay), might not provide enough of an incentive to many users.
Accordingly, the Goldman Sachs analyst believes that "limited developer resources and uncertainty related to long-term App Store policy may result in a slow adoption of any external payment methods, except for the most well-resourced developers."
This, of course, bodes well for Apple, which charges a 30 percent fee in the US for processing in-app payments, with this rate declining to 15 percent after the first 12 months of subscription. Apple's Services division, which includes the App Store, iCloud, and Apple TV Plus, raked in $26.65 billion in the first quarter of 2025.
About the author: Writing is my one incontrovertible passion. Over the past six years, he has authored over 2,200 distinct articles on financial and tech-related topics, spanning nearly 1 million words. And he has been a member of Wcctech mobile team since 2025. As an alumnus of the University of Toronto, Rotman Commerce Program, I bring nuance, in-depth knowledge, and a unique perspective to every topic that I cover. When I'm not writing, I'm traveling the world, exploring hidden confectionaries and restaurants as an aspiring food connoisseur.
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