Apple claims that in the EU, iMessage is not a gatekeeper.
The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which came into force on August 25, aims to foster greater competition in the EU digital market by regulating the market power of large companies. These large entities, referred to as “gatekeepers,” are defined as large digital platforms with over 45 million active users in the EU and annual revenues of €7.5 billion or more.
The EU Parliament is set to release a list of gatekeepers on September 6, and companies included on this list will have until March 6, 2024, to comply with the regulations. These regulations primarily focus on opening up the market to competitors and ensuring interoperability between apps and platforms.
Apple and Microsoft are reportedly disputing the classification of their respective services, iMessage and Bing, as gatekeepers. Apple argues that iMessage does not have the required 45 million active users in the EU to be considered a gatekeeper. Similarly, Microsoft contends that Bing holds only a 3% market share in the search engine market, which is significantly less than Google’s dominant position.
As the list of gatekeepers is set to be published tomorrow, we will gain a comprehensive understanding of the companies and services subject to the EU’s new digital regulations. It is expected that Amazon, ByteDance, Meta (formerly Facebook), and Samsung will also be listed as platform gatekeepers.
