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Apple certainly has a duopoly with Google in both the mobile operating systems market, and the mobile app distribution market.

iOS has 60% of the market in the US[1], and Android has 40%, and Google and the App Store is responsible for 100% more revenue than the Play Store[2].

Also, layman definitions of monopoly do not matter when it comes to antitrust laws[3]:

> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power.

[1] https://deviceatlas.com/blog/android-v-ios-market-share

[2] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/app-revenues/

[3] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...




Your stats show web traffic, not sales or market share.

For a monopoly you want to show market dominance by dollars, not activity.

By sales units, Android dominates [0] with 327k vs iOS’ 38k (most recent quarter was 2019-q3).

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_Wide_Smartphone_S...


You're being pedantic. It's the second of only two alternatives; it counts as monopoly power here and everywhere.


It’s vastly smaller though so doesn’t have the market power that a monopoly would have.

When there’s a market with only two players where #1 has 75% of the market and #2 has 24%, describing #2 as being part of a monopoly is inaccurate.

That’s like saying that Apple had a monopoly with Microsoft in the 90s because between the two of them they had the whole market.


> When there’s a market with only two players where #1 has 75% of the market and #2 has 24%, describing #2 as being part of a monopoly is inaccurate.

It's very strange that you think worldwide market share has anything to do with market share in the US when it comes to antitrust laws in the US.

iOS has 60% of the market in the US[1], with Android taking the remainder. Apple and Google form an effective duopoly in the mobile OS, app distribution and app payment markets. They both form a mobile app distribution cartel that engages in price-fixing[2].

Again, your colloquial definition of monopoly doesn't matter when it comes to antitrust laws in the US. Please read this[3].

[1] https://www.pcmag.com/news/ios-more-popular-in-japan-and-us-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_fixing

[3] https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...


there is no "world government" to handle world monopolys. There is only country governments the handle monopolys in their own market.

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta...


https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta...

iOS has 60% of the market in the US. This is cited (repeatedly) by the exact same Wikipedia article you looked at.

PS: web traffic is largely a function of market share at this granularity.


That is not units or sales, the wiki article I cited includes both web traffic and units.

This also shows that web traffic isn’t a function of market share because iOS users generate more traffic than Android users.

In a banking analogy, market share isn’t based on the number of checks written but by assets under management or number of customers or revenue.




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