Apple could face charges next week for violating EU antitrust law for restricting other companies from accessing its Apple Pay mobile payment system, and could face fines of up to 10% of global turnover. This was reported by the Financial Times, citing informed sources.
According to the newspaper, European Commission investigators, led by EU competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager, may accuse Apple of unfairly blocking financial institutions such as PayPal and leading banks from accessing its mobile payment system, used on hundreds of millions of iPhones.
An investigation into this matter was opened in 2020. The accusations are related to NFC technology; thanks to which users can pay for purchases without using bank cards by bringing their iPhone to a payment terminal. Apple does not allow third parties to process payments through its payment system, arguing that doing so will violate the security and privacy of users of its devices. Sources warned that the filing of charges could get a postponement to a later date.
Apple accused of violating EU antitrust laws by restricting access to Apple Pay
In addition, two more investigations are underway against Apple, against which there were no antitrust claims from the EU until last year, regarding possible violations of antitrust laws by the American company in the e-book market and in relation to music streaming services.
Gizchina News of the week
Last quarter, Apple managed to increase revenue by 9%; but the share price fell after it became known about the possibility of reducing revenue by $ 8 billion in the current quarter.
As usual, the mood of investors was spoiled by the company’s chief financial officer Luca Maestri; who announced the inevitability of the impact of the logistics and production crisis; initiated by lockdowns in China, on revenue in the current quarter. According to him, the company will lose from 4 to 8 billion dollars of revenue due to this factor in the second quarter. Against the background of such statements; Apple shares managed to fall in price by up to 4% at the moment; but by the morning they won back part of the losses. Lockdowns in China will also undermine demand in the local market, as an Apple executive explained.
The company’s first-quarter revenue rose 8.59% from $89.59 to $97.28 billion, with earnings per share of $1.52, beating analysts’ expectations. The company gained $50.57 billion from iPhone sales, up 5.5% from a year earlier. Good growth was demonstrated by services and subscriptions, which increased core revenue by 17.28% to $19.82 billion. Notebooks and Mac computers also did not disappoint in terms of demand dynamics; revenue from their sales increased by 14.73% to $10.44 billion; The iPad tablets were notable for their negative revenue dynamics, which decreased by 1.92% to $7.65 billion. All other products brought Apple 12.37% more revenue ($8.81 billion) than a year earlier. The rate of return reached 43.7% against the expected 43.1%.
