Japan’s Fair Trade Commission is launching an investigation into Apple and Google’s dominance in the smartphone operating system market, and whether they use it to hamper competition.

whether Apple and Google are leveraging their dominance in the smartphone operating system market to eliminate competition and severely limit options for consumers.

Commission Secretary-General Shuichi Sugahisa told reporters the study will involve speaking to app developers, operating system users and a wide survey of smartphone users.

The watchdog will team with the government’s Digital Market Competition Council to compile a report.

Japan’s FTC has been compiling information on the digital sector since 2019, launching an investigation into cloud services in April, which followed probes into the e-commerce sector, and digital advertising.

The United States’ FTC launched a similar antitrust investigation against the two tech giants in July.