Apple claims market share in India is insignificant, asks CCI to dismiss antitrust case

Claiming that its market share in India is too small, Apple Inc has asked the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to dismiss the antitrust case. Apple has been alleged of hurting competition by forcing app developers to use its proprietary system, which charges commissions up to 30% on in-app purchases.

But the iPhone maker has denied the allegations. In its filing to the CCI, Apple has highlighted that its market share in India is ‘insignificant’, that is 0-15%, while rival Google has 90-100%  with its Android operating system.

Kyle Andeer, Apple’s Chief Compliance Officer, in the submission dated November 16 said Apple is not dominant in the India market. “Without dominance, there can be no abuse. It has already been established that Google is the dominant player in India.”

Together We Fight Society, a little-known non-profit organization, is the complainant in this case. It said that Apple with iOS dominants the market for non-licensable mobile operating systems. But Apple, in its filing, countered that the entire smartphone market should be taken into consideration.

According to Reuters, the American company described the Indian complaint as a ‘proxy filing’. It said the complainant was likely acting in concert with parties with whom Apple has ongoing commercial and contractual disputes globally and/or that have complained to other regulators. However, Together We Fight Society said Apple’s remark was made to prejudice the mind of the CCI without any iota of proof.

Apple’s dominance has led to an antitrust probe in Germany, Japan, Australia and the US Justice Department into the App Store’s fees and policies. It became more relevant after Epic Games took on Apple to change the fundamental elements of the app store. It came after Epic updated the Fortnite app with a new feature, one that allowed customers to pay Epic directly for in-app currency at a discount, than paying traditionally via Apple’s app store payment mechanism. For the customers this meant skipping the app store rules that demanded payments go through the Apple app store payment system, paying a 30% fee in the process.

Also Read: Apple claims market share in India is insignificant, asks CCI to dismiss antitrust case

To counter this, Apple pulled down the game from the app store for violating guidelines. Google also pulled down the game from the Google Play Store.