Britain is turning the screws on the smartphone duopoly. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is using new legal powers to push Apple and Google to open up their mobile platforms — most notably by letting app developers "steer" users toward cheaper payment options outside the app stores, the regulator has set out. It's a direct threat to a highly profitable revenue stream.

The new power

The action rests on a new tool. Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC Act) — the UK's answer to the EU's Digital Markets Act, in force since 2025 — the CMA can label dominant firms with "Strategic Market Status" (SMS) and then impose tailored "conduct requirements." In October 2025, it designated both Apple and Google with SMS in mobile platforms, confirming they hold entrenched market power over how apps reach UK users. The current consultations turn that status into concrete rules.

What would change

Two changes stand out. First, steering: today Apple largely bans developers from telling users about cheaper payment options off the platform, and Google restricts it; the CMA wants that opened up, and says any fee the platforms charge for steering should be lower than their current app-store commissions, with the savings reaching consumers or going back into development. Second, NFC access on the iPhone — letting banks and fintechs offer contactless "tap to pay" without routing through Apple's own system.

The financial stakes sit in those commissions. Apple's standard cut is 30% (15% for many smaller developers and subscriptions); Google uses a tiered model starting at 15%. Across the global app economy — worth well over $100 billion a year — even a few percentage points is enormous. The consultations run through late July, with the CMA expected to finalize requirements later this year.

A global pincer

The UK isn't acting alone — it's part of a worldwide push to pry open the mobile platforms:

  • The EU's Digital Markets Act already forces Apple to allow third-party app stores and alternative payments in Europe.
  • In the US, Apple and Google face antitrust pressure, and a long-running Epic Games fight has chipped at Apple's payment rules.
  • Australia's ACCC, whose case against Amazon Boursel covered this week, has intervened in the Epic-Apple dispute and is pushing for similar rules.

Google has already moved to loosen its global steering terms; Apple has been the more resistant of the two.

The pushback

Apple's standard argument is that opening up harms security and privacy — the company has warned that such changes "would undermine the privacy and security protections that our users have come to expect," it told CNBC. Critics counter that "security" has become a convenient shield for a lucrative toll booth.

Why it matters

For developers, looser rules could mean billions in saved commissions and a direct line to their customers. For consumers, it could mean cheaper apps and subscriptions — if the savings are passed on. For Apple and Google, it chips at a business with famously fat margins. And for the broader principle, the UK's move reinforces a growing global consensus: that the mobile platforms are essential infrastructure no single company should control on its own terms. Boursel takes no view on the companies' shares; the signal is that the app-store toll, long treated as a fact of digital life, is now squarely in regulators' sights on three continents at once.