“The Core Technology Fee is 50 cents per first annual install per year once you've hit a million installs threshold. The interesting thing very easy to miss is that this includes not only 'I tap the button in the App Store to install' — it also includes app updates. So you can think about it as the number of people in the EU that have the app on their iOS phone.”

Core Technology Fee = €0.50 per annual install — counts UPDATES, not just first downloads

The €0.50 CTF isn't just a per-download fee — it triggers on every annual app update, converting it from an acquisition cost into a recurring per-user tax on the entire EU install base over 1M. Free apps with retained users get hammered every year.