India need not follow EU regulation on Apple's App Store and Google's Play Store
Considering Apple's compliance with the EU regulation, should competition authorities in India also mandate the company to accept the installation of alternate app stores and non-Apple payment gateways? Probably not. A more sensible approach would be to accept Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store as natural monopolies in their spheres and regulate the tariff, without compromising the security and integrity of these platforms.
The European Union’s Digital Marketing Act, designed to identify gatekeepers to the digital economy and specify dos and don’ts for these gatekeepers, came into force on 1 November 2022. Its provisions, however, became applicable on 2 May 2023.
Designation of gatekeepers took place on 6 September 2023, and application of the obligations arising from being identified as gatekeepers will kick in from March 2024. The time the European Union gives regulators and the regulated to acquire clarity on what precisely compliance means is noteworthy, especially in India, where some magical thinking is not uncommon on the time it takes for new regulation to take hold.
Apple and Google levy a 30% commission on paid apps, subscription apps (the rate falls to 15% after the first year), and the purchase of digital content on these apps, the so-called in-app purchases. There are concessional charges for small businesses, whose definition varies from app to app (and region to region, in some cases).
Samsung’s app store charges 30%, while several Chinese app stores charge anything between 50% and 60%. The initial justification for such hefty commissions had been that it cost Apple and Google, the app store developers, a lot of money to develop these platforms, and they have to keep spending money to ensure their
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