Apple CEO Tim Cook is scheduled to speak in front of the U.S. House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee today, and his opening statements have been made available.
Cook is expected to say that Apple does not have a dominant market share in any market where it does business, and that the iPhone is “far from the only choice available to consumers.”
The smartphone market is fiercely competitive and companies like Samsung, LG, Huawei, and Google have built very successful smartphone businesses offering different approaches.
Apple does not have a dominant market share in any market where we do business. That is not just true for iPhone; it is true for any product category.
Cook plans to dispute claims that Apple is anti-competitive. Apple and its App Store, says Cook, has opened the “gate wider” for developers, saying the fees Apple charges provide access to Apple APIs and other benefits.
Cook will also argue that Apple’s 15 to 30% cut is competitive with other stores and that Apple offers a better option than what was available for software developers prior to when the App Store launched in 2008.
App Store developers set prices for their apps and never pay for “shelf space.” Apple continuously improves, and provides every developer with cutting-edge tools like compilers, programming languages, operating systems, frameworks, and more than 150,000 essential software building blocks called APIs. These are not only powerful, but so simple to use that students in elementary schools can and do make apps.
The App Store guidelines ensure a high-quality, reliable, and secure user experience. They are transparent and applied equally to developers of all sizes and in all categories. They are not set in stone. Rather, they have changed as the world has changed, and we work with developers to apply them fairly.
The antitrust hearing will begin today at 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time. In addition to Cook’s testimony, it is also expected to feature testimony from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and Google/Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai.