EU starts investigation into sales methods Apple iPhone

Questionnaire to mobile operators

According to British business paper Financial
Times the European Commission has sent out a questionnaire to several mobile
operators. They focus mainly on the distribution policies of the iPhone.

The list has questions about possible obligations to buy a set number of devices, obligations concerning marketing
budgets and even clauses that guarantee Apple that competitors will never get
better conditions.

Other questions are about possible technical
and contractual limitations Apple would impose, causing the iPhone 5 for
example not to work (yet) on 4G-networks in certain EU-countries.

Brussels also wants to know if Apple forces the
operators in some way to always use the iPhone as favourite example in “written
or spoken statements”.

Still dominant?

If the suspicions are true, it would mean the access of other smartphone producers to certain markets would be made very
difficult or even impossible. The EU has a long way to go though: to sentence
Apple, the Union has to prove that Apple is a dominant player on the smartphone
market and with the current success of Samsung that could be difficult.

Apple says it always keeps to European
regulations, says the Financial Times.