The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has imposed a penalty of Rs 13.37 billion on Google India for abusing its dominant position in multiple markets in the Android Mobile device ecosystem, apart from issuing cease and desist order. The Commission also directed Google to modify its conduct within a defined timeline.
The Commission has examined various practices of Google with respect to licensing of Android mobile operating system and various proprietary mobile applications of Google, for example – Play Store, Google Search, Google Chrome, YouTube, etc.. For this purpose, the Commission delineated following five relevant markets in the present matter:
- Market for licensable operating system (OS) for smart mobile devices in India
- Market for app store for Android smart mobile OS in India
- Market for general web search services in India
- Market for non-OS specific mobile web browsers in India
- Market for online video hosting platform (OVHP) in India.
Subsequently, CCI noted that Google’s business was found to be driven by the intent of increasing users on its platforms so that they interact with its revenue earning.
Google India has been given a time of 30 days to provide the requisite financial details and supporting documents.
