US suing Apple over its ‘smartphone monopoly’

It claims the tech giant is ‘throttling’ competition

THE US government has filed a landmark lawsuit against Apple accusing it of raking in hundreds of billions of dollars by running an illegal monopoly in the smartphone market.

The Justice Department claims the tech giant is guilty of ‘locking’ in iPhone customers to its ecosystem while crushing competition.

Attorney general Merrick Garland said the firm had undermined rival products on its App Store that could have helped users save money.

It comes just weeks after Apple was fined €1.8billion by the EU for not allowing music streaming services such as Spotify to tell customers it was cheaper to subscribe elsewhere.

The US firm has faced widespread criticism over the so-called ‘Apple Tax’, the 30% cut it takes on subscriptions that is often passed on to the consumer.

The latest US lawsuit accuses Apple – whose profits of over €80billion last year are bigger than the GDP of more than 100 countries – of implementing strict rules to make itself richer while ‘throttling’ competition.

According to the Justice Department, the company’s share of the US smartphone market exceeds 70%, and its share of the broader smartphone market is greater than 65%.

At a news conference yesterday,

Mr Garland said Apple had ‘maintained its monopoly, not simply by staying ahead of the competition on the merits, but by violating federal antitrust laws’.

‘Consumers should not have to pay higher prices because companies break the law,’ he said, accusing Apple of ‘locking its customers in’ while at the same time ‘locking its competitors out’.

Mr Garland added: ‘If left unchallenged, Apple will only continue to strengthen its smartphone monopoly.’

He said the company created barriers that made it ‘extremely difficult and expensive for both users and app developers to venture outside the Apple ecosystem’. The complaint lists a raft of further ‘anti-competitive’ measures allegedly taken by Apple, including limiting thirdparty payments, suppressing third-party streaming apps and ‘diminishing the functionality’ of smart watches not made by the company.

Apple last night vowed to ‘vigorously defend’ itself against the claims, arguing it set a ‘dangerous precedent’ by allowing the US government to design people’s technology.

‘Locking its customers in’