EU's new tech laws are working - small browsers gain market share

Opera

10/04/2024 05:45

By Supantha Mukherjee and Foo Yun Chee
       STOCKHOLM/BRUSSELS, April 10 (Reuters) - Independent
browser companies in the European Union are seeing a spike in
users in the first month after EU legislation forced Alphabet's
Google  GOOGL.O , Microsoft  MSFT.O  and Apple  AAPL.O  to make
it easier for users to switch to rivals, according to data
provided to Reuters by six companies.
    The early results come after the EU's sweeping Digital
Markets Act, which aims to remove unfair competition, took
effect on March 7, forcing big tech companies to offer mobile
users the ability to select from a list of available web
browsers from a "choice screen." 
    Browsers are software that help users connect to the
internet and are traditionally offered by big technology
companies like Apple and Google for free in exchange for
tracking which websites consumers visit and selling
advertisement to them.
    In mobile devices that run Android, Chrome browser comes as
default and iPhones with Safari, making them the dominant
browsers in the market.
    Cyprus-based Aloha Browser said users in the EU jumped 250%
in March - one of the first companies to give monthly growth
numbers since the new regulations came in.
    Founded in 2016, Aloha, which markets itself as a privacy
focused alternative to browsers owned by big tech, has 10
million monthly average users and earns money through paid
subscriptions, rather than selling ads by tracking users.
    "Before, EU was our number four market, right now it's
number two," Aloha CEO Andrew Frost Moroz said in an interview.
    Norway's Vivaldi, Germany's Ecosia and U.S.-based Brave have
also seen user numbers rise following the new regulation.
    U.S.-based DuckDuckGo, which has about 100 million users,
and its bigger rival, Norway-based Opera  OPRA.O  are also
seeing growth in users, but said the choice screen rollout is
still not complete.
    "We are experiencing record user numbers in the EU right
now," said Jan Standal, vice president at Opera, which counts
over 324 million global users.
       
    CHOSEN ONES
    Under the new EU rules, mobile software makers are required
to show a choice screen where users can select a browser, search
engine and virtual assistant as they set up their phones. 
    Previously, tech companies such as Apple and Google loaded
phones with default settings that included their preferred
services, such as the voice assistant Siri for iPhones. Changing
these settings required a more complicated process. 
    Apple is now showing up to 11 browsers in addition to Safari
in the choice screens curated for each of the 27 countries in
the EU, and will update those screens once every year for each
country.
    While DuckDuckGo and Opera are offered in Apple's list in
all 27 countries, Aloha is in 26 countries, Ecosia is in 13 and
Vivaldi in 8.
    Google is currently showing browser choices on devices made
by the company and said new devices made by other companies
running Android operating system will also display choice screen
in the coming months.
    A Google spokesperson said they do not have data on choice
screens to share yet.
    As iPhones have a bigger market share than Google-branded
phones, the growth for smaller browsers is currently coming at
the cost of Safari.
    Opera said most of the positive trends are from people
making Opera the default browser on their iPhones.
    But browser companies criticized how Apple and Google rolled
out the new features which they described as slow and clunky,
and they believe are slowing the migration of mobile users to
new browser choices. 
    Mozilla, which owns Firefox browser, estimates that only 19%
of iPhone users in the region received an update in a roll-out
that appeared much slower than previous software updates, the
company said.
    In iPhones, users can see the choice screen only when they
click Safari, and then users are shown a list of browsers with
no additional information, said Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner,
CEO of Norway's Vivaldi.
    "The process is just so convoluted that it's easiest for
(users) to select Safari or potentially some other known name,"
he said. 
    The complicated design has led European Commission to start
a non-compliance investigation into whether Apple may be
preventing users from truly exercising their choice of services.

 (Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Stockholm and Yun Chee in
Brussels; Editing by Kenneth Li and Daniel Wallis)
 ((mailto:supantha.mukherjee@thomsonreuters.com; +46 70 721
1004; Reuters Messaging:
rm://supantha.mukherjee.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net/))