India’s antitrust regulator, the Competition Commission (CCI), today announced that it has reportedly fined Google 13.38 billion rupees ($161.95 million) for anti-competitive behavior related to Android mobile devices. In addition, the CCI has asked Google not to provide any incentives to smartphone manufacturers to exclusively pre-install Google’s search services.
Google has not yet commented on this. According to research firm Counterpoint Research, 97 percent of the 600 million smartphones in India are powered by Google’s Android operating system.
Google is currently facing a series of antitrust cases in India, as well as stricter regulations for the entire technology industry. In addition to Android, CCI is also investigating Google’s business practices in the smart TV market, and its in-app payment system.
Back in May 2019, India’s CCI had announced an investigation into Google to assess whether Google was using its Android mobile operating system to suppress competitors. The CCI investigation found that Google had abused its dominant position in India by reducing the ability of device manufacturers to choose alternative versions of the Android mobile operating system.
CCI alleged at the time that by placing conditions on the pre-installation of Google’s proprietary applications, Google reduced device manufacturers’ ability and incentive to develop and sell devices running alternative versions of Android. The prima facie evidence showed that Google abused its dominant market position.
In addition, Google Android has been fined in the EU. in July 2018, the European Commission imposed a €4.34 billion (then about $5.15 billion) antitrust fine on Google. The European Commission said that since 2011, Google, by virtue of its dominant position in the Internet search market, had imposed a number of illegal restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile operators.
Specifically, it has required Android device manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search App and Chrome browser as a condition of licensing the Google Play Store app store; paid fees to specific large Android device manufacturers and mobile operators to exclusively pre-install the Google Search App; prevented device manufacturers that pre-installed Google apps from selling pre-installed “forked” versions of Android smart devices.
