Danish Competition Council Approves Apple Commitments on iPhone Repairs

News

1. December 2025

The Competition Council intervenes against Apple

Apple has offered commitments to the Danish Competition Council, which may make repairs of iPhones cheaper, and create more repair options. Among other things, Apple commits not to introduce artificial barriers to the repair process of iPhones in Denmark.

The Chair of the Danish Competition Council, Christian Schultz, states:

We assess that Apple’s commitments will have significant impact on competition for the repair of iPhones in Denmark. For consumers and for businesses whose employees use iPhones, repair prices may be lower than otherwise, and they may have more options if the iPhones does now work as it should. At the same time, the commitments create new business opportunities or the group of repairers who are not currently affiliated with Apple.

Our preliminary assessment is that Apple’s conduct may have enabled Apple to set higher prices for Apple spare parts for iPhones. At the same time, Apple’s conduct may have influenced end customers to buy new iPhones instead of repairing old ones, and may have prevented repairers not affiliated with Apple from repairing iPhones to full functionality.
The Danish Competition Council has approved commitments from Apple. The commitments resolve the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority’s concerns that Apple may have abused a dominant position by placing barriers to the repair process of iPhones.

When repairers had repaired the screen, battery or cameras on an iPhone without using Apple’s new spare parts and software, certain functions on the phone did not work, and the phone displayed a message stating that an unknown part had been used.

With Apple’s commitments, all repairers will be able to repair iPhones, without Apple introducing artificial barriers to the repair process.

The commitments entail that Apple:

• Undertakes not to introduce artificial barriers to the repair process, regardless of whether new, used, original or non-original parts are used, and regardless of which repairer carries out the repair.
• Will enable parts to achieve the full functionality that the part allows. This applies regardless of who the repairer is, and whether the part is original, non-original, new or used.
• Undertakes to display only objective, factual and non-discriminatory repair messages on the iPhone after a repair. Apple’s commitments strengthen repairers’ access to repairing iPhones in the Danish market. This may lead to lower repair prices and increase consumer choice. It may also become more advantageous to repair an iPhone instead of buying a new one. The Danish Competition Council has not adopted a decision finding that Apple has infringed the competition rules.

It is often the EU competition authority that pursues competition cases against tech giants such as Apple. There is, however, nothing to prevent a national competition authority from bringing a case concerning an infringement of the competition rules against a large international company. In this case, among other things, it has been relevant that iPhones are generally more widespread in Denmark than in other European countries.

For further information

Contact the Head of Communications at the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority, Hanne Arentoft, on +45 41 71 50 98.

Links

Read summary of the decision (in English)

Read the Competition Council’s decision on Apple’s conduct in relation to repairs of iPhones (in Danish)

Press photo of the chairman of the Danish Competition Council Christian Schultz

Repairs of iPhones

At least in the period 2018 to 2024, the following applied to repairs of iPhones:

• If an iPhone’s part was defective, there could be a need to replace a part.
• Parts such as the screen, battery, and front and rear cameras had to be verified, paired and calibrated. If this did not happen, certain functions would not work, and a message would appear stating that an “unknown part” had been used.
• The verification process required that the repairer had access to Apple’s software and that a new original part had been used.
• Not all repairers had access to Apple’s software and new original parts.

Repairers of iPhones in Denmark

In the period 2018–2024, repairers of iPhones in Denmark could be divided into three types:

• Apple Authorized Service Providers repairers: These repairers were obliged to use only Apple’s software and new original parts for all iPhone repairs. They performed both in-warranty repairs and out-of-warranty repairs.
• Independent Service Providers: These repairers had access to Apple’s software and new original parts, but were not obliged to use them exclusively. They typically offered both repairs with parts from Apple and repairs with parts from suppliers other than Apple. They performed only out-of-warranty repairs.
• Unauthorized repairers: These repairers were not part of any of Apple’s repair programs, and for most of the period they did not have access to Apple’s software and new original parts. They offered only repairs using parts from suppliers other than Apple, and they performed only out-of-warranty repairs.

Commitments in competition cases

• If the Danish Competition Council can establish that a company infringes the competition rules, the Council may intervene by issuing an order.
• Alternatively, the company may seek to find a solution by offering commitments that resolve the Danish Competition Council’s concerns. In the Apple case, the Danish Competition Council does not make a final assessment of whether the competition rules have been infringed.
• The company drafts its own commitments, while the Danish Competition Council makes them binding in its decision.
• Commitments oblige the company to act or to refrain from acting in a particular way.
• Commitments are binding on the company, and breaching them is subject to penalties.
• A commitments decision may have the same effect on a market as an order, as the company removes potentially anti-competitive conduct that may harm consumers, businesses and the wider economy.