StatCounter measures web usage, not market share. iOS users tend to jump into Safari and browse the web from their devices more than peer devices, quite contrary to the conspiratorial noise often spread on here.
By actual sales of devices, iOS accounts for between 41-46% of the market. That users on iOS tend to use the web more from their devices doesn't somehow make it a monopoly.
And to be clear I don't think whether it's a monopoly or not is particularly relevant -- it's still arguably abusive, anticompetitive behavior -- but that misleading statcounter claim is used for disinformation on here daily.
The threshold the US government uses is 50% market share, with exclusionary behavior. 100% is not required (and would be a crazy requirement to have; even Microsoft in its heyday couldn't have been prosecuted with that kind of threshold).
The question isn't whether Apple has a large enough market share in the US for the courts to get involved — it very clearly does — the question is does it exhibit exclusionary behavior to the extent courts should get involved.
(I think it does exhibit exclusionary behavior, but I can see that being much more open to interpretation than the simple fact that it clears the 50% threshold.)
Regardless, my comment was just correcting the statement that Apple doesn't have a majority market share in any market, when in fact it has majority market share in the US market.
Your comment does not correct that statement, and uses erroneous data to claim otherwise.
Apple does not have more than 50% marketshare of smartphones in the US. In most analyses it is between 41-43%, with an absolute high of 46%. Android accounts for the rest. And of course worldwide iOS is dwarfed by Android.
EDIT: Of course this was down-arrowed. The citation of StatCounter is akin to claiming that the rodeo's parking lot has 80% pick-up trucks, therefore pick-up trucks have 80% of the market. It's absolute nonsense but it somehow appears on HN repeatedly. Never change, HN. Never change.
That's a fair point that I didn't realize. That being said, it looks like the Apple App Store has well over 50% of the market (assuming "the market" means percentage of sales by revenue), so I think it's a moot point anyway; Epic is suing Apple for its monopolistic practices with the App Store, and it looks like app sales on that do clear the 50% threshold even if device sales don't. https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/07/03/apples-app-store-...
> Courts do not require a literal monopoly before applying rules for single firm conduct; that term is used as shorthand for a firm with significant and durable market power — that is, the long term ability to raise price or exclude competitors. That is how that term is used here: a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power. Courts look at the firm's market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area.
Because the only legal avenue to challenge Apple's policies is anti-trust law, and because Apple doesn't have a monopoly, it's hard to argue against them on anti-trust grounds.
[*] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share