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Today the CMA designated Google’s ‘Mobile Platform’ (Android, Play, Chrome, Blink) with ‘strategic market status’. This decision is disappointing, disproportionate and unwarranted.
The UK’s new digital markets regime was introduced with the promise of being pro-growth and pro-innovation, with the CMA emphasising that its work would be highly targeted and proportionate. In this context, we simply do not see the rationale for today’s designation decision.
Android and Chrome were built on the idea of creating more choice, not less. Anyone, including our competitors, can customise and build devices with the open-source Android operating system – for free. And while Google Play helps people download apps on their devices, if you don’t find the app you’re looking for, you can download apps from a rival store or directly from a developer’s website – something the majority of Android users actually do, and something other mobile platforms restrict.
As a result, there are now 24,000 Android phone models from 1,300 phone manufacturers worldwide, facing intense competition from iOS in the UK. More than two thirds of UK Android devices come with a non-Play app store preloaded and users can access 50 times more apps on Android than iOS. Non-Chrome browsers are installed on 70% of UK Android devices. As the CMA has already acknowledged, Google does not use “its position as an operating system or mobile browser engine to favour Chrome”.
The benefits to UK businesses and consumers are clear. Android generates over £9.9 billion in revenue for UK developers, supports over 457,000 UK jobs and gives customers a remarkable level of choice. Indeed, the CMA has itself found that 91% of UK consumers are ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with their Android mobile devices.
Following the CMA’s decision today, our mobile business in the UK faces a set of new – and, as of yet, uncertain – rules. The CMA’s next steps will be crucial if the UK’s digital markets regime is to meet its promise of being pro-growth and pro-innovation.
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