And that’s what makes it an anti-trust violation….eliminating competition by making your products low cost/ free and then increasing prices subsequently.
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My position is that Android's price (free) and first party support from Google for their apps basically meant that all of the competing platforms were essentially undercut from the market because nobody could compete with Google for the price Google charged for their operating system (again, free). That allowed Google to pretty quickly wipe out all of the competition except for Apple's iPhone. For Google, Android was more about ensuring that they had access to a platform for their own ecosystem purposes rather than a need to sell the operating system itself so giving it away for free to provide a direct ramp to Google's services (and advertising) makes business sense in a way it didn't make sense for Microsoft at the time. The Epic lawsuit also alleges interference (in the legal sense) to prevent Fortnite Launcher on devices as a competing app stores and obviously the EU has had fun with them and their dominant marketshare. Near as I can tell, Android has 100% of the smartphone operating system market.
Apple continues to be a minority player in the smartphone market, I think you quoted a max of 30% marketshare? If we take Android out of the equation then I think we end up in a world where the other smartphone operating systems survive. Of course Apple doesn't license their operating system to others so doesn't compete in the smartphone operating system market. Apple disrupted the smartphone space and redefined hardware but ultimately didn't act in a way that resulted in the collapse of the smartphone operating system market in the same way Google's Android being released for free did.
I personally wish Microsoft would have hung on for longer but they weren't happy being the third player in the ecosystem which is a shame because it would have provided an interesting alternative complete with integration into Microsoft's competing online service suite. Windows Phone had a bunch of other unforced errors that didn't help their adoption, meant that it wasn't competitive with it's immediately previous version (Windows Mobile 6.5) and pushed unpopular technologies like Silverlight, XNA and later UWP. I had hoped Firefox OS or the Ubuntu phone would have taken off as well to provide an alternative to Android but the barrier to entry there remains getting apps and in a world where Google's ecosystem (regardless of mobile platform) is dominant, you're fighting an uphill battle there.
Partially the challenge for Microsoft was that it interfered (in the legal sense) with the relationships between Netscape and OEMs on blocking pre-installs, conspiring to use it's dominance in the operating system market to block a competitor. There were charges around the use of private APIs in their operating system (again with over 90% of the market) but ultimately I believe there were no restrictions on the tying portion which is how they continued to bundle the browser so long as the APIs were open. Had they done this when they didn't have 90%+ marketshare, Microsoft might have been in a different situation. This is some of the roadblock and wrangling that takes place to define Apple as having a monopoly which only works if the market that Apple has monopoly over is defined as Apple's own devices. When one considers the broader market (either for operating system or smartphones in general, ultimately the percentage is identical due to Android), they don't have even half of the market share which makes it hard to bring a monopoly case against the smaller platform.
Yes. People don't read anymore. What Google was doing is called Bundling ... a practice subject to Anti Trust in certain situations.
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At the moment Apple competes in many markets. Is a conglomerate with competing solutions in many industries. From Finance to Music, from Digital Retail to Computing Devices ... all bundled together around the iPhone.
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Once again, you didn't follow the conversation. The question was about who they compete with in a "moble OS market".
Mostly just Android but there are a few other very small players. Stats for the mobile OS market largely show Android and iOS with about 99% combined share.
Android isn't a competitor. It's software.
"Monopoly" issues are typically dealt with at regional levels. While Apple's market share in the mobile OS/device market is currently under 30% globally, it's much higher in countries like the U.S. where they are #1 with around 58% share. This dominance in the U.S., as an example, is why some "monopoly power" and antitrust concerns can and do come up regarding Apple. Being a monopoly or having monopoly power is not necessarily illegal but it does open the door to more scrutiny regarding business practices/activities and these can potentially lead to further investigations and lawsuits.
Given the discussion here, I was taking "Apple" to refer to its iOS product. iOS is a competitor to Android and since Apple owns iOS, they compete with that product in the mobile OS market.
Apple competes with who in the mobile OS market? The answer is exactly the same as who Apple competes with in mobile device markets. Because iOS and iPadOS are just features of mobile devices.
iOS market share is exactly the same as iPhone market share. Because you can only get iOS on an iPhone. You buy a smartphone, not an OS. That's why I find it weird to discuss OS market share instead of device market share. The problem with that is you start shifting definitions and you find yourself discussing OS installed base and calling it market share.
Apple competes at the device level as well as at the OS level. Just because Android and iOS may be "features" of devices doesn't mean they don't compete in the OS market. Similarly, just because Safari and Chrome may be "features" of devices doesn't mean they don't compete in the browser market.
Close but not exactly the same. There's also iPod Touch. This is a reason why I tend refer to the OS market in discussions like this.
Consumers choose between browsers. Google and Apple and Mozilla compete for browser market share.
Fair enough.
The iPod touch is completely irrelevant to a discussion of mobile market share.
Let's start over with specific evidence. Apple's global smartphone market share was around 15-17% for 2021.
Gartner Says Global Smartphone Sales Grew 6% in 2021
Gartner says global #smartphone sales grew 6% in 2021. Read more here. #IT
www.gartner.com
Smartphone market shares by vendor 2009-2025| Statista
In the third quarter of 2025, Samsung held the largest share of global smartphone shipments, at ** percent.
www.statista.com
You claim that their "mobile OS market share" is close to 30%. How is that possible? To double their smartphone market share, that would require they sell more iPads than iPhones. Obviously, that's a ludicrous claim.
That's the kind of confusion that I'm talking about.
Consumers can also choose between an OS by which phone they buy e.g., some specifically choose the iPhones because of iOS while others may instead choose a phone like Pixel because of Android.
The iPod touch is completely irrelevant to a discussion of mobile market share.
It may be completely irrelevant to a mobile phone market discussion but it's not completely irrelevant to a mobile market discussion, especially if the discussion is about iOS and iOS related things.
Exactly. You got it! It's a factor among others in choosing which phone you by.
Maybe insignificant would have been a better word.
Let's start over with specific evidence. Apple's global smartphone market share was around 15-17% for 2021.
Gartner Says Global Smartphone Sales Grew 6% in 2021
Gartner says global #smartphone sales grew 6% in 2021. Read more here. #ITSmartphone market shares by vendor 2009-2025| Statista
In the third quarter of 2025, Samsung held the largest share of global smartphone shipments, at ** percent.
You claim that their "mobile OS market share" is close to 30%. How is that possible? To double their smartphone market share, that would require they sell more iPads than iPhones. Obviously, that's a ludicrous claim.
That's the kind of confusion that I'm talking about.
My percentage was based on StatCounter data which currently shows iOS with close to 30% share as shown below. I specifically used the term "market share" in the post since that is how StatCounter (as well as others) typically label ongoing usage share for things like operating systems, apps, etc. I've also used simply "share".
There you go! You are discussing mobile OS usage or install base.
The fact that a lot of people bought your product in the past doesn't mean that you are currently dominating a market.
There you go! You are discussing mobile OS usage or install base.
The fact that a lot of people bought your product in the past doesn't mean that you are currently dominating a market.
Exactly.
There is quite a distinction between market share and installed base.
A quick reminder for some people here:
Market share is the percentage of smartphones sold in the last 3 months.
For instance... if there were 300 million total smartphones sold last quarter... and Apple sold 50 million iPhones... Apple would have around 17% market share for that quarter. The market share number changes every quarter depending on the total number of smartphones sold each quarter.
Installed base refers to all the smartphones on Earth.
For instance... there are 1 billion iPhones currently being used compared to about 3 billion Android phones.
I just wanted to put this information out there. Hope it helps.
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There you go! You are discussing mobile OS usage or install base.
The fact that a lot of people bought your product in the past doesn't mean that you are currently dominating a market.
Yes. I assumed that was fairly obvious since we were talking about iOS and related. Current or active usage share (traffic analysis firms/site seem to like to use "market share") is what's relevant in discussions about a company's potential dominance in things like OS and related. Apple's restrictions regarding apps/sideloading, browser engines, etc. combined with their mobile OS dominance in markets like the U.S. is what can bring out monopoly power concerns and more scrutiny of their business practices/activities.
I appreciate the sarcasm. I think the case has been made about the difference between market share and install base / usage share.Except that traffic analysis firms/sites for web, software, etc. often use market share to refer to usage share.