TL;DR: The UK regulator has provisionally found that Apple and Google meet the threshold for Strategic Market Status (SMS) under the DMCC. In Apple’s case, the decision highlights its ban on competing browser engines and its actions to suppress competition from web apps.
What Just Happened?
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is today proposing to designate Apple and Google with ‘strategic market status’ (SMS) in each of their mobile platforms and has published separate roadmaps of potential actions to improve competition. SMS is the UK’s equivalent to gatekeepers under the DMA.
A proportionate, pro-innovation approach*
The UK’s new digital markets competition regime can help unlock opportunities for innovation and growth, by promoting competition in digital markets while protecting UK consumers and businesses from unfair or harmful practices. To support pace and provide greater predictability for Apple and Google and other market participants, the CMA has published roadmaps outlining how it would prioritise actions taken during the first half of any designation period. UK CMA
The report highlights the lack of competition for Apple’s WebKit on iOS:
On Apple mobile devices, all mobile browsers are required to use Apple’s WebKit browser engine (ie as a result of the WebKit restriction), as specified in Apple’s App Store Review guidelines. Apple therefore does not face competition from rival mobile browser engines on its Mobile Ecosystem. This position will not change unless Apple lifts its total prohibition on the use of alternative browser engines on its Mobile Ecosystem. SMS Investigation into Apple’s Mobile Platform - Proposed Decision
The report also highlighted that web apps are not a competitive substitute due to Apple’s restrictions:
Specifically, 58 of 108 content providers we gathered evidence from indicated that web apps are not a viable substitute to the native apps, and a number of these content providers indicated that substitutability is particularly limited in terms of functionality and discoverability, which are important factors for app developers’ distribution choices. Several content providers further submitted that functionality issues with web apps are due to restrictions that Apple has imposed on web browsers within its Mobile Ecosystem. SMS Investigation into Apple’s Mobile Platform - Proposed Decision
Will Strong Enforcement of Pro-Competition Laws Help or Hinder Startups?
Recent calls for the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to be “more pro-business” appear to suggest that the UK should ease up on enforcing rules against some of the world’s most powerful companies. Former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt went so far as to publicly admonish the CMA, urging regulators to “understand their wider responsibilities for economic growth”.
But this framing is backwards. Weakening enforcement of competition rules does not drive growth, quite the opposite. Economists overwhelmingly agree that turning a blind eye to anti-competitive behaviour entrenches monopolies, stifles innovation, and ultimately harms consumers and startups alike.
It seems like the UK now welcomes monopolies provided they have an investment story. There’s something really topsy-turvy about this. Former CMA Regulator
The idea that easing pressure on gatekeepers will help startups is fundamentally flawed. In reality, failing to curb the control dominant firms exert over their platforms, especially through blocking competition, actively harms smaller players and undermines the interests of the UK public.
This is not about targeting American companies. Enforcing competition rules helps American firms just as much as it helps British and European ones:
For US negotiators to carve out exemptions for American companies now would defang the DMA and stall its pro-competition benefits just as they begin to be felt. [...] The victims of a DMA pause would be America's most innovative upstarts — especially AI start-ups. The DMA's interoperability and fairness rules were designed to pry open closed platforms and give smaller companies a fighting chance. [...] Big Tech lobbyists portray the DMA as anti-American. In reality, the DMA's goals align with American ideals of fair competition. This isn't Europe versus America; it's open markets versus closed ones. Luther Lowe - Y Combinator - Head of Public Policy
(emphasis added)
In fact, the three major companies leading efforts to bring competing browser engines to iOS, Google, Mozilla, and Microsoft, are themselves American. Many of the smaller browser vendors relying on those efforts are American too. Apple's restrictive policies don't just harm consumers and developers, they harm other US tech firms as well. These policies benefit no one but Apple, which makes billions annually by locking down browser and web app competition on iOS.
Let’s be clear: Apple stands alone in banning competing browser engines and suppressing web app innovation on its platform. No other gatekeeper in the market enforces such a blanket restriction.
If the UK government is serious about supporting business, it must back the CMA in enforcing pro-competition rules decisively, especially when those rules are essential to giving startups and smaller companies a fair shot at innovation and growth.
The web, as the world’s most open and widely used platform, is central to that opportunity. But its future depends on real competition at the engine level, across every operating system.
Being pro-growth means being pro-competition. Undermining enforcement does nothing but shield entrenched incumbents and stifle the very innovation the UK claims to champion.
What Happens Next?
The CMA is consulting on these provisional designations ahead of final decisions in October. Should Apple or Google be designated, they expect to begin consulting on a first set of interventions from autumn 2025.