Mobile Browsers and Cloud Gaming: Final decision report

The independent inquiry group appointed for this market investigation has found that a number of markets relating to browsers on mobile devices are not working well for consumers and businesses, which is holding back innovation and could be limiting growth in the UK. Mobile browsers are apps which provide the primary gateway for consumers to access the web on their mobile devices, and hence for businesses to reach them with their content and products. The issues we have identified mean that consumers could be missing out on new features when using mobile browsers; and businesses are limited in their ability to reach consumers through browser apps. We have identified a number of features in the markets for mobile browsers, browser engines and in-app browsing technology which restrict competition. 

• First, Apple specifies that mobile browsers in the UK must use Apple’s own underlying browser engine (WebKit), which determines what competing mobile browsers can do on iOS. 
• Second, Apple’s own mobile browser Safari has or has had greater or earlier access to key functionalities from the operating system and Apple’s WebKit browser engine, compared to competing mobile browsers. 
• Third, Apple limits the technology available to link to web content from within an app on iOS. T
• Fourth, we are concerned about revenue sharing arrangements between Google and Apple, whereby Google pays Apple a significant share of the search advertising revenue earned from traffic on Safari and Chrome on iOS. We have found that Apple and Google earn significant revenue when their key rival’s mobile browser is used on iOS for web searches on Google, significantly reducing their financial incentives to compete. 
• Fifth, we find both Apple’s and Google’s product design choices about when, whether and how users make certain decisions about mobile browsers, also known as ‘choice architecture’, are making it significantly harder for users to drive competition by making active choices about their use of mobile browsers.