Google's European Dominance

The European Commission has hit Google with a record-breaking antitrust fine on Wednesday. The search giant has been ordered to pay €4.34 billion ($5.1 billion) for abusing Android’s dominant position in the smartphone market to strengthen its position in other areas such as web search, browsing and mobile apps. Google has already announced that it's going to appeal against the ruling.

In April 2016, the European Commission started its investigation against Google for allegedly breaching EU antitrust rules. The company was accused of requiring device manufacturers to pre-install Google Search and the company’s Chrome browser as a condition to license Google's app store (Google Play Store) as well as paying device manufacturers to pre-install Google Search on their devices. Today's ruling concludes this investigation, stating that "Google has used Android as a vehicle to cement the dominance of its search engine. These practices have denied rivals the chance to innovate and compete on the merits. They have denied European consumers the benefits of effective competition in the important mobile sphere".

The below chart illustrates Google's dominance in the largest EU markets. Based on StatCounter data, the chart shows the company's market share in web search, mobile operating systems and web browsers in the second quarter of 2018.