iPhone eventSource: Apple

What you need to know

  • Apple's Dan Matray has said that the company does not have a dominant position in any market.
  • The head of Apple's EU App Store and Media Services was speaking at a Forum Europe event.
  • He said that Apple competes with a "wide variety of companies."

Apple's head of App Store and Apple Media Services Europe has told a Forum Europe event that Apple doesn't dominate any of the markets it operates in.

Dan Matray was speaking at Forum Europe's Digital Services Act conference. As Reuters reports, Apple is the subject of two formal EU antitrust investigations. Touching on allegations that Apple has an unfair advantage over competitors he said:

"We compete with a wide variety of companies, Google, Samsung, Huawei, Vivo, LG, Lenovo and many more... In fact, Apple does not have a dominant position in any market, and we face strong competition in every category, in tablets, wearables, desktop and notebook computers, maps, music, payments, messaging, and more"

Matray also spoke in defense of Apple's 30% App Store cut, one of the specific issues mentioned by the EU when it announced the investigations. He reiterated that the same rules apply to all developers and that 85% of developers pay no money to Apple. Arguing that the App Store helped, rather than hindered competition he said:

"In the nearly 12 years since the App Store debuted, the best measure of its success is the dynamism it has unleashed and the state of the app economy today"

The European Commission announced two separate formal investigations into Apple's App Store and Apple Pay over alleged anti-competitive practices, in particular following outcries from companies such as Spotify.