‘Vice-like grip’ of tech giants on mobile use

APPLE and Google’s ‘vice-like grip’ on the mobile phone market is causing millions of customers in the UK to lose out, the competition regulator warned yesterday.

A probe has found the tech giants’ duopoly over the industry is stifling competition and innovation – and in turn increasing prices for consumers.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said both companies were not only the main players in the market but ‘set all the rules too’. When people buy a phone, they essentially enter either Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android ‘ecosystem’, which incorporates the operating system, app stores and web browsers.

The regulator is concerned it gives them ‘too much control’ over how users access online content and allows them to ‘tilt the playing field to their own services’.

Figures from last year show more than half of all smartphones in use were Apple iPhones, while the rest all used a version of the Android operating system.

Andrea Coscelli, the CMA’s chief executive, said the ‘best way’ to intervene would be through the Digital Markets Unit (DMU) once Parliament passes its legal powers.

The UK’s new digital regulator is expected to have the power to suspend, block, or reverse anti-competitive action by tech giants. But the Government is still consulting on the proposals. In the meantime, the DMU has been established within the CMA on a non-statutory basis.

Publishing the CMA’s interim report into the mobile market, Mr Coscelli said: ‘Apple and Google have developed a vice-like grip over how we use mobile phones and we’re concerned that it’s causing millions of people across the UK to lose out.

‘It can be easy to forget that they set all the rules too – from determining which apps are available on their app stores, to making it difficult for us to switch to alternative browsers on our phones.’

Google said its Android app ecosystem supported nearly a quarter of a million jobs in the UK. ‘We’re committed to building thriving, open platforms that empower consumers and app developers,’ a spokesman said. Apple said its rules and guidelines were ‘constantly evolving’ and it had made many recent changes to benefit app developers and consumers alike.

‘Tilts the playing field to their own services’