Apple adds South African Rand to the app store

Apple continues to go global with its App Store ambitions: the company has made eight additions to the list of supported currencies. The new currencies are the Russian Ruble, Turkey’s Lire, India’s Rupee, Indonesia’s Rupiah, Israel’s New Shekel, Saudi Arabia’s Riyal, South Africa’s Rand, and United Arab Emirates’ Dirham. The additions came after developers were told earlier in the week that iTunes Connect, the portal that lets developers control pricing and app availability, would be down for a period of time on the 25th.

In the past, users in these countries would not have been able to pay for apps in their local currencies. Instead, they would have had to pay in U.S. dollars in their local app stores, using cards that processed payments in dollars, only use free apps, or perhaps get paid apps by illegal means. That was definitely one issue in China leading up to Apple accepting Yuan payments in the App Store, which it did in November 2011.

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MaximusZA said:

i just think this means the SA store will be in Rands instead of Dollars. I doubt this will affect content at all.

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clasqm said:

Fired up the Mac App Store and indeed the prices are listed in Rands. But that just means that there's a little currency converter app in the system that runs every so often. A little convenience, thanks Apple, now can we get a real media & appstore?

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doobyscoo said:

So does this mean no more gift cards and I can purchase with my CC?

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ponder said:

You'll probably still be limited to what you can buy based on location.

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