Apple believes that iMessage remains a huge selling point for iPhone buyers
For this to have taken place, the EU would have had to designate iMessage as a “gatekeeper” which means that it would have to have 45 million monthly users in the EU, which it did not. As a result, Apple, at least for now, does not have to add RCS support to iMessage in the EU. “Gatekeeper” designations were given to Apple’s App Store, Safari browser, and iOS. Google Maps, Google Play, Google Shopping, Chrome, Android, YouTube, Google Search, and Google Ads were among the services owned by Google that were given the “gatekeeper” title by the EU.
The EU said that in February it will make its final decision about whether iMessage should be considered a “gatekeeper” and forced to support RCS. Meanwhile, Google is trying to persuade the EU to list iMessage as a “core platform service” under the DMA.
Apple guided The Financial Times toward a comment it made that reads, “Consumers today have access to a wide variety of messaging apps, and often use many at once, which reflects how easy it is to switch between them.” Apple also said, “iMessage is designed and marketed for personal consumer communications, and we look forward to explaining to the commission why iMessage is outside the scope of the DMA.”
If Google does get its way, Apple could limit the breadth of the EU’s ruling by limiting RCS support in iMessage to the 27 EU member countries.
