The developers asked the antitrust regulator to investigate and penalise Apple for allegedly "abusing the company's market dominance."
A group of Chinese developers has filed a complaint against Apple over its allegedly “unfair” App Store commission rates to China’s market watchdog, in a fresh challenge to the US tech giant’s lucrative smartphone ecosystem.
The 48 iOS developers claimed that Apple failed to fulfil its promise to offer the lowest commission rate to the Chinese market, according to an open letter to China’s State Administration for Market Regulation.
The developers asked the antitrust regulator to investigate and penalise Apple for allegedly “abusing the company’s market dominance” to implement “unfair and excessively high” costs on local creators, according to the letter published by one of the developers, Tian Junwei, on his WeChat blog on Monday.
This is not the first time Apple has become a target of Chinese developers. In 2017, a Beijing law firm filed a complaint on behalf of local developers, accusing Apple of removing apps without a proper explanation and taking an excessive 30 per cent cut of in-app transactions. In 2021, a Chinese consumer sued Apple for its high iOS app store fees, but the claim was rejected by a court in Shanghai in 2024.
Notably, on June 18, 2026, Apple allowed developers in Brazil to distribute iOS apps through alternative app marketplaces and process in-app payments using third-party payment systems. The move followed an agreement the company reached with Brazil’s antitrust regulator, CADE, in December 2025. According to CADE, the agreement will remain in effect for three years from the date the new terms come into force. If Apple breaches the agreement, it could face fines of up to 150 million Brazilian reais, as well as the reopening of the antitrust investigation.
Apple has been facing similar scrutiny globally. Last year, two civil rights groups lodged a complaint to antitrust regulators in the European Union over Apple’s App Store policies. In July, the company was fined €500 million (US$572.2 million) for violating the EU’s Digital Markets Act. The company lodged an appeal that is still pending.
Source: SCMP
