Apple is fighting India's App Store antitrust probe by attacking how the case was built, not just what it concluded.
In a June 25 submission to the Competition Commission of India, Apple argued that the regulator's Director General copied claims from opponents — including Match, Walmart's PhonePe, and Paytm — without independent verification. Apple provided tables it says show the conclusions were reproduced verbatim from rival filings. It also accused the CCI of lifting a graphic on global app spending directly from a 2024 EU ruling, despite different market conditions in India. The CCI's investigators had privately concluded in 2024 that Apple engaged in "abusive conduct" and wrongly mandated its own payment system; Apple denies the findings.
The procedural argument matters because it gives Apple a path to challenge the case's legitimacy without relitigating every underlying fact. Google tried the same tactic in its own Indian antitrust fight — arguing investigators copied a European ruling — and it did not prevent a forced restructuring of Android promotion. Apple is also contesting the penalty law itself, which allows fines based on global turnover, putting Apple's theoretical exposure at up to $38 billion.
Apple holds under 6% of India's smartphone market, which it cites as evidence it is a "minuscule player" unworthy of the scrutiny — a framing that conveniently ignores that App Store revenue does not scale with device market share. The company spent much of the probe stalling, per the CCI, and filed its copy-paste accusation the same day it submitted only local Indian financial data after a string of deadline extensions. That timing is hard to read as anything other than a delaying tactic dressed up as principle.