CMA gets ready to take on Apple and Google over mobile browsing

An independent inquiry into the mobile browser market has recommended that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) consider investigating Apple and Google’s mobile ecosystem activities. However, the inquiry also recommended that no further action needs to be taken on cloud gaming.
 
The provisional findings of the inquiry concluded that the mobile browser market is not working well for UK businesses and millions of individual phone users. 

The CMA began an investigation following its Mobile ecosystems market study in 2021, which found that Apple and Google have an effective duopoly on mobile ecosystems, including operating systems, app stores and web browsers on mobile devices. This puts Apple and Google in a position to set the rules on how mobile browsers work on iOS and Android devices respectively.

The independent inquiry reported that Apple restricts competitors from delivering new, innovative features that could benefit consumers. For instance, rival browser providers have highlighted concerns that they have been unable to offer a full range of browser features, such as faster webpage loading on iPhone.

“Many smaller UK app developers also told us that they would like to use progressive web apps – an alternative way for businesses to provide apps to mobile users without downloading apps through an app store – but this technology is not able to take off on iOS devices,” said the group assessing the mobile browser market for the CMA.

There is also a revenue-sharing agreement between Google and Apple, which significantly reduces the financial incentives of other browser developers offering mobile browsers on iOS.

Other issues considered in the report include the way users are presented with choices about which browser they use. The inquiry provisionally found that Apple and Google have the ability to manipulate these choices to make their own browsers the clearest or easiest option.

Through our investigation, we have provisionally found that competition between different mobile browsers is not working well and this is holding back innovation in the UK

Margot Daly, chair of the CMA’s independent inquiry group, said: “Markets work best when rival businesses are able to develop and bring innovative options to consumers. Through our investigation, we have provisionally found that competition between different mobile browsers is not working well and this is holding back innovation in the UK.

“The analysis set out in this report and a range of potential interventions considered to address the market issues identified by the group merits consideration by the CMA board under its new powers, which have been specifically designed for digital markets. Under those new powers, the CMA can consider the case for designating firms with strategic market status, taking account of the interplay between the specific markets that are the subject of this market investigation and Apple’s and Google’s wider mobile ecosystems.”

In the US, the Department of Justice is looking to force Google parent Alphabet to sell the Chrome browser, following a ruling in August in which the search engine giant was found to have acted in an anti-competitive manner.