Indian antitrust watchdog orders an investigation into Apple's practice of mandating use of its own payments system for iPhone apps in the App Store
Indian antitrust watchdog on Friday ordered an investigation into Apple's business practices — in particular, the mandatory use …
Context & Ripple Effects
This order converts a leak into a formal case. In September 2021, Reuters reported Apple was facing scrutiny in India over its mandatory in-app payment system, after the non-profit Together We Fight Society filed a complaint with the Competition Commission of India alleging anticompetitive App Store practices. The CCI has now ordered a full investigation into the payment mandate.
India is becoming a repeated venue for this fight: the same watchdog opened a case against Google in late 2020 over whether the Play Store favors Google Pay over rivals, and this Apple probe ultimately produced a [[a:869199|June 2024 CCI report finding Apple exploited its dominant App Store position and engaged in abusive conduct]].
First-order effects
- Apple must now defend its requirement that iPhone apps use its own payments system before India's Competition Commission, with the Together We Fight Society complaint as the anchor of the case.
- App developers in India gain a formal regulatory forum for their objection to the App Store's payment mandate, moving the dispute from press reports to a documented investigation.
Second-order effects
- The probe runs parallel to the CCI's Google Play Store payments case, putting both major app store operators under the same regulator's scrutiny and raising the odds India sets a common rule for in-app payment mandates rather than treating the platforms separately.
Third-order effects
- If the CCI's eventual findings — as foreshadowed by its 2024 abuse report — lead to remedies on payment mandates, India joins the group of jurisdictions where app store take rates and payment rules are set partly by regulators rather than platform owners.
The trend: Antitrust regulators are increasingly targeting app store payment mandates as the clearest exercise of platform gatekeeper leverage, with India's CCI pursuing both Apple and Google on the same question.