EU investigation concludes Apple Maps does not qualify for Digital Markets Act
The European Union has decided not to add Apple Maps or Apple Ads to the list of online services large enough to fall under the Digital Markets Act.
When the EU first announced the gatekeeper list, it included six Big Tech firms, from Apple to ByteDance, then owner of TikTok. In November 2025, the European Commission began investigating Apple Maps as well as Apple Ads to see if they meet these criteria.
Now according to Reutersthe regulator has decided not to mark any service as a gateway manager.
“The Commission concluded that Apple does not qualify as a gateway operator in relation to Apple Ads and Apple Maps,” the European Commission said in a statement, “as none of these platform services represent an important gateway for business users to reach end users.”
A bittersweet victory
Apple therefore avoided regulation regarding Apple Maps and Apple Ads. The company publicly thanked the EU for recognizing that services are too small to count.
“These services face significant competition in Europe,” Apple said in a statement about the decision. “We are pleased that the Commission has recognized that they do not meet the criteria for designation under the Digital Markets Act.”
But the win highlights that Apple Maps has failed to match the popularity of Google Maps – which is the gatekeeper. Specifically, it is a basic gatekeeper platform service, and the EU decided on it in 2023.
It is unclear why it took two years after the Google Maps decision for the EU to consider Apple Maps. But then it’s also unclear why it took until November 2025 to conclude that Apple Maps and Apple Ads don’t qualify as gatekeepers, since the definition would seem to be clear.
According to EU legislation, gatekeeper is a service of a technology firm that has more than 45 million monthly active users. The firm must also have a market capitalization of less than 75 billion euros ($88.7 billion).
Maybe you should have called Apple and asked how much of its $4 trillion market cap is registered in Europe. But if so, the EU could have asked for Apple Maps usage statistics in the same call.
Apple’s 3D models and satellite imagery are more impressive despite having less data than Google
Apple doesn’t release Apple Maps statistics, so there’s no way to gauge how close it is to the 45 million monthly user figure. Then it’s also impossible to calculate how far Google Maps is, because the published EU decision cleaned up the usage data, for example only “>45 million.
While Apple Maps sees it as too small to care about, Apple will benefit from the decision because it means escaping a greater potential for fines under the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
As defined by the DMA gatekeeper, the EU previously fined Apple $2 billion for alleged anti-competitive actions with Apple Music. Similarly, the whole matter of the EU forcing Apple to open up the iPhone to competing app stores is under DMA regulation.