Apple has accused Indian antitrust investigators of "copy-pasting" claims from its rivals and failing to conduct their own analysis, arguing the regulator's findings against it should be thrown out.
In a June 25 submission to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) reviewed by Reuters, Apple escalated its long-running dispute with the regulator, where Match and a group of Indian startups are among its opponents. The CCI's investigators privately concluded in 2024 that Apple had engaged in "abusive conduct" on the App Store and wrongly mandated the use of its own payment system.
Apple has denied the allegations. The company said it is a "minuscule player" with under 6% of India's smartphone market, and argued the investigation's conclusions rest on rivals' claims rather than the CCI's independent work. It warned that "forced alterations to Apple's carefully designed App Store could disrupt its integrated business model," and that remedies would "create regulatory uncertainty and could deter investments in India's digital economy."
In its submission, Apple provided tables intended to show the CCI's investigation team had simply reproduced filings from opponents in the case, including Match, Walmart's Indian payments app PhonePe, and Indian rival Paytm. "The DG [Director General] made no effort whatsoever to independently verify or critically assess these statements, often parroting them verbatim," Apple said.
Apple also claimed the CCI "blindly replicated" a graphic on worldwide consumer spending on mobile apps and games drawn from a 2024 EU ruling against the company, despite India facing different market conditions. In its own case, Google argued that Indian investigators had copied parts of a European ruling, but it had little effect on the final ruling resulting in forced changes to promotion of Android.
Apple is also arguing that officials failed to grant it "a single opportunity to record its statements and provide oral evidence" during the probe, in contrast to Google, which it says was given several chances to defend itself.
The regulator has accused Apple of stalling the case for more than two years by withholding responses and pursuing a parallel challenge to India's antitrust penalty law, which allows for fines of up to 10% of a company's turnover over the previous three years. That law lets India base any penalty on global rather than local turnover, the basis on which Apple has estimated its potential exposure at as much as $38 billion. Apple is separately contesting in a New Delhi court whether the law, which took effect in 2024, should apply to the full 2022–2024 period in question.
Apple had refused to supply global financial documents for that period before agreeing to cooperate in early June 2026, ultimately submitting only its local Indian turnover after requesting a "final extension" that ran to June 25, which was the same day it filed its copy-pasting accusation.
The dispute comes as India grows ever more central to Apple's business. The country is set to make 26% of the world's iPhones in 2026, up from 6% four years ago.
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