Apple has ‘significant concerns’ over CMA probe into its Safari mobile browser

Apple said it has “significant concerns” with the UK competition watchdog investigation into the supply of mobile browsers.

In 2022, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a probe into the dominance of Apple’s Safari browser and Google’s Chrome browser, along with the possibility that Apple may be restricting the cloud gaming market through its app store.

But, in a sharp response to recent CMA papers, Apple slammed the regulator’s analysis of mobile browsing as “flawed and insufficient”.

“If the deficiencies are not remedied,” it warned, “the CMA risks reaching findings and potentially imposing remedies that ultimately lead to material harm to users (including vulnerable consumers), developers, and competition more broadly,” the Californian tech giant said.

The CMA’s probe is focused on Apple’s WebKit engine, which all iOS browsers must use.

The watchdog argued that this lack of competition is “likely to reduce Apple’s incentives to improve WebKit,” but Apple says its Webkit requirement is necessary for security and performance.

Among a number of concerns, Apple accused the CMA of dismissing some of its evidence “without evidence to the contrary,” and relied “to a large degree on unsubstantiated assertions” made by some developers. It also said there are “many instances” where the CMA highlighted concerns it had never raised with Apple before.

The investigation, which has a deadline of March 2025, was temporarily suspended last year after Apple challenged the lawfulness of this at the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in March 2023 but the CMA, however, successfully appealed this.

A CMA spokesperson said: “Working papers do not contain settled analysis nor provisional or final decisions. They convey a snapshot of the CMA’s emerging analysis at a point in time and invite input.

“The CMA considers evidence received during its investigation in a transparent and objective way, including all responses to these working papers.”