Antitrust attacks start to bite into Apple’s $100bn services business

August 18, 2026 - 09:23

Apple's highly profitable services division, long seen as a reliable growth engine worth over one hundred billion dollars annually, is starting to show cracks under the weight of antitrust rulings and forced changes to its App Store policies. For years, the company leaned on fees from app developers, search ads, and subscription cuts to offset slowing hardware sales. But recent court decisions and new regulations in both the United States and Europe are eating into that margin.

The most immediate impact comes from new rules that allow app developers to steer users toward external payment systems, bypassing Apple's standard commission of up to thirty percent. While the company has tried to frame these changes as minor adjustments, analysts note that even a small shift in payment flows can have an outsized effect on a business that generates most of its profit from digital services. In the last quarter alone, services revenue grew at its slowest pace in years, a sign that the easy growth days may be over.

Legal challenges are also piling up. A federal judge recently ruled that Apple must allow links to outside payment options in certain app categories, and European regulators are enforcing similar mandates under the Digital Markets Act. Apple has appealed some decisions, but the direction is clear. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are no longer willing to accept the closed ecosystem that made the App Store so lucrative.

The company is not standing still. It has raised prices on some subscription tiers and pushed deeper into advertising within its own apps. But those moves carry their own risks, as they could invite even more scrutiny. For now, investors are watching closely. The services business was supposed to be the hedge against iPhone saturation. If that hedge starts to weaken, the entire investment thesis for Apple may need a rethink.