Report: Apple claims iMessage not big enough to fall under purview of EU ‘gatekeeper’ competition law
Report: Apple claims iMessage not big enough to fall under purview of EU ‘gatekeeper’ competition law
Via Financial Times, Apple is claiming that iMessage is not big enough to classify as a gatekeeper service under the...
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I have no idea how they are counting it but I think there might be a grain of truth to this. iPhone users don't choose iMessage specifically, it's the default when texting other iPhone users. But how many people in Europe use SMS these days? It's all WhatsApp, Messenger etc.
Apple has the exact number. They could have released it to give the claim more weight.
As it stands I find it hard to believe that less than 45 million people in the EU use the service monthly. I assume they use a definition of "active users" that pushes the number artificially down. Whether or not that definition is inline with the definition by the EU is something we will have to find out.
As it stands I find it hard to believe that less than 45 million people in the EU use the service monthly
I believe it. Iphone has pretty low market share in EU and most people use third party apps like whatsup. So even iphone users are forced to use those third party apps.
I think a demographic analysis would be more important. If imessage only has 20% share in total but 60% among teens, then that should be enough to be to be considered gatekeeper. Especially considering that those teens will eventually grow up and probably carry that market share into adulthood.
I do not know a single person who uses iMessage. Europe uses Signal or WhatsApp. With an iPhone market share of 26 %, it just isn't viable. People like to use a single (or at most 2) messaging app. No point in using iMessage.
Even not considering this, the EU has 448 Million people and a smartphone penetration of roughly 85 %. So if every iPhone user would use iMessage, this would bring the number to 448 * 0.85 * .26 = 99 Million. I highly doubt more than half of the iPhone users use iMessage.
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iPhones aren't the only products that can use iMessage. You have apple watches and iPads on top of it. Which puts the potential uses way up.
While iPhones might have a market share below 30% in the EU as a whole, the share varies a lot in individual countries. In Poland it's just 10% while in Denmark it's above 60%.
And iPhones tend to appear in clusters. In my experience they aren't evenly distributed. I know of families where everyone uses iPhones while in my family no one has. So any kind of personal experience is rather pointless.
Until numbers are publicized, I still find it hard to believe that fewer than 45 million people use iMessage a month. I fully believe that fewer than 45 million people use it daily. So it comes down to how you define active users. And Apple will almost certainly use a strict definition of what counts as an active users to reduce the number.
At least in my bubble iPhone users don‘t use iMessage among each other either
Last time I sent an SMS was like 7 years ago or something like that.
Companies still use them to send you verification codes (which depending on your country can be a mayor security risk) and reminders, but otherwise it's mainly WhatsApp or other messagers like Telegram or Signal.
Quick info: It's major not mayor.
One thing is big, the other is a person acting big.
It's probably true that not many people use the IM portion of iMessage in the EU. In my experience, I've never actually seen anyone use it.
That being said, since it's the default SMS app, you can't convince me that most iPhone users don't use it al least once a month (even if just to get a one time code from the bank). It's definitely more than 45 million users, at least for the SMS part of the app.
I'm not trying to defend Apple, but arguably that's an entirely different system that just happens to be packed into the same UI. It's deeply integrated which I find worrying, but doesn't really mean that if I get a SMS text for security verification that I'm "using iMessage" in any real sense.
Eh, I don't know that iMessage is actually enabled by default within the Messages app, but if it is then it is very easy to disable.
Because it wasn't super clear what it was when it first appeared or what the advantages of it were, I rejected it immediately, have kept it disabled ever since, and just use regular SMS or Signal.
In the EU, Android is much more dominant than in the US, so it makes sense that iMessage isn’t used much.
Even with people who currently have an iPhone I personally don’t use it, because they might switch to Android in the future.
Have never used it, and not aware of anyone who does, despite living in places where iPhones are overwhelmingly dominant.
Among iOS users in my circles, we use SMS, with minor use of apps like Signal.
Among the general public, I hear plenty of talk which suggests Whatsapp etc are populat, but never a whisper about iMessage.