55 iPhone and iPad users have filed a collective complaint with China's antitrust regulator alleging abuse of Apple's dominant position in the iOS ecosystem.
Apple is facing a fresh antitrust challenge in China, as 55 iPhone and iPad users jointly filed a complaint with the country's top competition regulator, accusing the US tech giant of abusing its dominance in the iOS app ecosystem.
The complaint, submitted Friday, targets Apple’s restrictions on linking to external payment platforms and on downloading iOS apps through channels outside the App Store.
The consumers argue these practices — along with Apple’s up to 30 percent commission on digital purchases — amount to abuses of dominance through restrictive trade practices, tying and unfairly high pricing.
The filing urges China’s State Administration for Market Regulation, or SAMR, to investigate and order Apple to allow alternative payment and distribution options without charging any commission. It also calls for Apple to apply its lowest global in-app commission rates.
The complainants also argue that Apple’s failure to voluntarily extend the low-commission third-party payment models it introduced in the US and Europe to China constitutes a form of national discrimination against Chinese consumers.
The filing mirrors allegations raised in a private lawsuit currently pending before China’s Supreme People’s Court on appeal. That case was brought by an individual iPhone user surnamed Jin and is being represented by the same lawyer behind the regulatory complaint, Wang Qiongfei.
It centers on similar accusations of market abuse involving Apple’s App Store policies and in-app payment system.
Although the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court dismissed the case in May 2024 in the first instance trial, it acknowledged that Apple holds a dominant position in the application-transaction platform for smart devices under the iOS system in mainland China — a finding the new complaint now cites in support of regulatory intervention.
When justifying its rejection of the unfair-pricing claim, the Shanghai court found that most app-trading platforms charge more than 15 percent, and that some Chinese app stores, such as those operated by Huawei and Oppo, can charge up to 50 percent under certain business-cooperation models.
The new complaint argues that Apple’s 30 percent commission is significantly higher than the zero-commission model typically applied by Android app stores in non-cooperation scenarios, which the complainants argue are the only valid comparators under China’s Antimonopoly Law.
Another signatory to the SAMR complaint is a lawyer, Tian Junwei, who in September launched a public campaign urging Chinese iOS developers to jointly report “Apple tax” concerns to the antitrust regulator.
Earlier this year, Tian also represented 48 consumers in a separate complaint to SAMR, accusing Apple of abusing its dominance by requiring users in China to use password-free payment options in the App Store without offering alternatives.
Wang Qiongfei told Reuters he expects the administrative complaint to proceed more swiftly than the earlier civil lawsuit, given SAMR’s regulatory authority over market conduct.
