Apple And Google Faced Monopoly Allegations In Mexico

Google play store faces allegations of monopoly in Mexico. (photo: doc. pixabay)

JAKARTA - The call for antitrust over the Play Store and App Store digital application stores continues to appear in various countries. After in the Netherlands, South Korea, and Australia, now it's Mexico's turn to complain about the same thing.

Apple Inc., and Alphabet Inc. Google is reportedly facing an investigation into its anti-competitive practices in Mexico. This was known through a tweet on Twitter from the country's former telecommunications chief filing a complaint and on Friday, September 9.

The lawsuit was submitted to Mexico's IFT telecommunications regulator yesterday by Mony de Swaan Addati, who once heads a former telecommunications federation which was later replaced by an IFT.

His complaint accuses Apple and Google of completely hampering competition, taking advantage of their monopoly on app stores to bind the use of their own payment processing systems for in-app purchases.

In an online statement, de Swan Addati said Google Play stores and Apple stores wore a 15%-20% commission, ultimately forcing price inflation.

Google itself declined to comment. Meanwhile, Apple and IFT were not immediately available for comment by Reuters on the report.

A wave of lawsuits and complaints challenging partner app store rules in various countries over the past few years has led Google to lower app costs and Apple also loosened the rules. But some app developers and other critics say more changes are needed.

De Swaan Addati added that Mexico's competition regulators had rejected its request to open an investigation into the companies, which prompted it to bring the case to the IFT.

"I have full confidence that (IFT) will investigate and use its power - in line with international best practices - so these companies stop abusing their market power to harm developers and consumers," he said.

According to data firm Statista, more than 30 million smartphones are expected to be sold in Mexico last year.

Google Android has the largest market share in Mexico with 77% penetration, according to the latest data from Statcounter.

Apple faces surveillance elsewhere in the region, with Brazil's regulators having banned the sale of iPhones without chargers earlier this week.

Meanwhile in Indonesia, until now Google's monopoly can be said to have been ended because third-party payments have been made. Meanwhile, for Apple, it is not clear at all. Even though many applications in Indonesia can benefit if the monopoly rights of the application store are fully revoked.