Aptoide sues Google

Aptoide sued Google on April 14, accusing the company of illegally monopolizing Android app distribution and in-app billing in federal court in San Francisco. (finance.yahoo.com) Aptoide said Google uses its control over the Google Play Store, phone makers, carriers and developer deals to keep rival app stores off Android devices or make them harder to use. The lawsuit seeks an injunction and unspecified triple damages. (finance.yahoo.com) The company is based in Lisbon and calls itself the world’s third-largest Android app store. It said its catalog had about 436,000 apps and more than 200 million annual users by 2024. (finance.yahoo.com) Android lets users install apps from outside Google Play, but antitrust cases against Google have focused on the extra friction around that process and on payments inside apps. In the Epic Games case, a jury found in December 2023 that Google unlawfully maintained monopoly power in Android app distribution and Android in-app billing. (cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov; cravath.com) A federal judge in October 2024 ordered Google to stop offering benefits to phone makers, developers and carriers in exchange for favoring Google Play, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed that injunction on July 31, 2025. The appeals court said the order bars Google from requiring its own payment solution and from paying partners to advantage the Play Store. (cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov; cravath.com) Aptoide’s suit lands after Google agreed in November 2025 to make Android and app store changes to settle the long-running Epic dispute. Aptoide argues those changes did not fix the barriers facing smaller stores. (finance.yahoo.com) Google did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on April 14. In the Epic litigation, Google argued that broader access for third-party stores could create security and safety risks for Android users. (finance.yahoo.com; scotusblog.com) This is not Aptoide’s first fight with Google. Reuters reported that Aptoide filed a separate complaint with European Union antitrust authorities in 2014, and the new case revives many of the same questions in a United States court. (finance.yahoo.com) The next step is Google’s formal response in court, where the company will have to answer Aptoide’s claims about phone-maker agreements, developer access and billing rules. For now, the suit adds another live test of whether Android can support app stores that compete directly with Google Play. (finance.yahoo.com; cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov)