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Apple is beginning to allow alternative app stores for iOS customers in Brazil. We learned in December that the company had reached an agreement with the Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (CADE), the Brazilian government's competition regulator, around how the third-party marketplaces would work domestically. 

The real draw of third-party mobile marketplaces for developers is a reduced fee structure surrounding in-app purchases. The Core Technology Fee for apps distributed outside the App Store will be 5 percent. Any alternatives to the App Store will have to be approved by Apple, and apps sold through them will face a review process called Notarization. This review will be less comprehensive than the usual App Store review while still ideally catching instances of malware, viruses or other security threats.

Apple has been in a protracted process to get its platforms open to third-party app stores for years. The plan for Brazil, including the Notarization review, is all similar to how the company has handled third-party marketplaces across Europe as that region began enforcing the Digital Markets Act.