London, UK – The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched a formal investigation into the market dominance of US tech giants Apple and Google in the UK mobile web browser market.
The CMA announced on Wednesday that it will examine whether Apple and Google hold a "strategic market position" in their mobile ecosystems, encompassing operating systems, app stores, and mobile browsers.
This investigation comes under the UK's Digital Markets Act, which allows the CMA to designate companies that hold strategic market positions in specific digital activities. Once designated, the CMA can impose remedies or undertake "pro-competitive interventions."
To be designated, a company must have substantial and durable market power in a UK digital activity, occupy a strategically important position, and have global revenues exceeding £25 billion or UK revenues exceeding £1 billion.
The CMA will scrutinize how competition operates in the markets where Apple and Google's OS, app stores, and mobile browsers are supplied. It will also investigate barriers to entry for competing products or services on Apple and Google platforms.
Key areas of inquiry include whether Apple and Google favor their own apps or services in OS usage or app and browser distribution, whether they impose unfair terms on app developers, and whether consumers have difficulty making active app choices.
If the CMA designates either company as holding a strategic market position, it will also consider whether to impose remedies at the time of designation.
This announcement comes just two days after the CMA's chair was replaced with Amazon executive Doug Gurr. The new chair's appointment follows criticism that the agency was not doing enough to promote economic growth under the Labour government.
Apple stated that it "believes in the value of dynamic markets where innovation thrives" and will continue to cooperate with the CMA. Google asserted that Android's openness "broadens choice, lowers prices, and democratizes access to smartphones and apps" and that it prefers approaches that do not restrict choice and opportunity for UK consumers and businesses.
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