Aptoide sues Google

Aptoide sued Google in San Francisco on April 14, accusing the company of illegally locking up Android app downloads and in-app payments. (reuters.com) The plaintiff is Aptoide, a Portuguese company that calls itself the world’s third-largest Android app store. Aptoide says Google’s control of app distribution and billing shut out smaller rivals and broke United States antitrust law. (reuters.com) (en.aptoide.com) Aptoide said it would have put “substantially more pressure” on Google’s prices and policies without what it called Google’s “anticompetitive chokehold.” Reuters reported that Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment on April 14. (reuters.com) The case lands after Google already lost a major fight over the same Android business. On July 31, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a jury verdict that found Google violated federal and California antitrust law in Android app distribution and in-app billing. (ca9.uscourts.gov) That appeals ruling also left in place a three-year injunction aimed at opening Android to more competition from other app stores and payment systems. The court said Google had unlawfully tied the Play Store to Google Play Billing. (ca9.uscourts.gov) Google has also faced other monopoly rulings outside the app store fight. In April 2025, a federal judge in Virginia ruled for the Justice Department in a separate case over Google’s digital advertising technology markets. (justice.gov) Aptoide is not a tiny entrant on paper: its website says it has more than 430 million users and 1 million apps, with offices in Portugal and China. The company argues that even a store of that size cannot compete fairly if Google controls both how Android apps are installed and how digital purchases are processed. (en.aptoide.com) (reuters.com) Consumers and developers have already seen one financial fallout from the broader Google Play scrutiny. A $700 million settlement approved in late 2025 resolved a multistate case over Android app distribution and Google Play Billing, covering purchases made from August 16, 2016 to September 20, 2023. (classaction.org) Aptoide’s suit now asks a federal court to revisit the same core question from a rival store’s point of view: whether Android is open in theory, but closed where the money and users are. (reuters.com)