On December 18, 2025, Japan's Mobile Software Competition Act — formally the Act on Promotion of Competition for Specified Smartphone Software (スマートフォン特定ソフトウェアに係る競争の促進に関する法律) — came into force, and in early 2026 the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) confirmed Apple and Google as the first designated providers. Five months in, the law is being marketed at home as Japan's answer to the European Union's Digital Markets Act (DMA). But on closer inspection, Tokyo has chosen a narrower target, a more litigation-friendly enforcement model, and a tone that is noticeably less adversarial than Brussels'. That distinction matters — for Japanese consumers and developers, for the wider Asia-Pacific rulebook, and for the global debate over how to regulate mobile platforms without strangling them.
What the Act actually does
The law, passed by the Diet in June 2024 and shepherded through by the Cabinet Office's Headquarters for Digital Market Competition, applies only to four categories of "specified smartphone software": mobile operating systems, app stores, browsers, and search engines. Providers above scale thresholds set by the JFTC become "designated providers" with a defined list of obligations and prohibitions.
The substantive requirements will look familiar to anyone who has read the DMA:
- Allow third-party app stores and sideloading on mobile OSes;
- Permit alternative in-app payment systems and out-of-app linking by developers;
- Refrain from self-preferencing in search and store rankings;
- Provide interoperability and data portability for users switching browsers or default engines;
- Give business users access to data they generate on the platform.
The penalty ceiling — up to 20% of relevant domestic turnover for repeat violations under Japan's Antimonopoly Act framework — is comparable to the DMA's 10–20% global turnover range, though calculated on a narrower base.
Where Japan diverges from the EU
The architectural differences are more interesting than the surface similarities.
Scope. The DMA covers ten categories of "core platform services" — including social networks, video-sharing, cloud, and ad-tech. Japan's act stops at four mobile categories. Messaging, marketplaces, and cloud are deliberately left to general competition law. That is a defensible choice: mobile bottlenecks are the most empirically grounded competition problem, and starting narrow lets regulators learn before expanding.
Process. The JFTC has emphasised a "dialogue first" model. Designated providers must submit compliance reports; the JFTC consults before issuing cease-and-desist orders or surcharge payment orders. This contrasts with the European Commission's investigation-heavy posture, which produced non-compliance findings against Apple and Meta within months of the DMA's go-live. Tokyo's preference for negotiated remedies over headline fines is more in keeping with Japanese administrative tradition — and, frankly, more likely to produce durable behavioural change.
Security carve-outs. Article 7 of the Act explicitly allows designated providers to refuse interoperability or sideloading where "necessary and proportionate" to protect user security, privacy, or minors. The DMA contains similar language, but its early enforcement has been hostile to security justifications (see the Commission's preliminary view on Apple's contractual terms). Japan's drafters appear to have learned from that friction.
The early evidence
It is too early for clean impact data, but a few things are visible. Apple opened alternative-marketplaces and alternative-payments capability for iOS in Japan ahead of the deadline, mirroring its EU implementation but with reportedly lower commission rates on the "core technology fee" equivalent. Google has extended its Play Store billing alternatives. At least three Japanese app-store entrants — including offerings from telecoms KDDI and SoftBank — have been announced. Domestic developer associations have publicly welcomed the law, though some have flagged the same complaints heard in Brussels: that compliance fees and security review processes blunt the practical benefit.
Consumer reaction is muted, which is arguably the best outcome regulators could hope for in the short term. The DMA's first year showed that most users stay on default app stores and default browsers regardless of choice screens. The point of these laws is not mass migration; it is to keep the option open and discipline pricing at the margin.
Why the proportionate path matters
People of Internet has consistently argued that mobile-platform competition is a real problem deserving real intervention — and equally that heavy-handed enforcement risks chilling the security and integration that make smartphones useful. Japan's Act, on the evidence so far, sits closer to the right balance than the DMA does.
Three features are worth replicating elsewhere in Asia-Pacific, where Australia, South Korea, and India are all weighing ex-ante mobile rules:
- Narrow scope, expandable later. Tackling mobile gatekeepers without sweeping in every adjacent service avoids regulatory capture and lets evidence accumulate.
- Genuine security exceptions. If platforms believe a regulator will not accept any security justification, they will either ignore the law or build a worse product. Japan's text and early signalling create space for legitimate engineering trade-offs.
- Compliance dialogue before sanctions. Front-loading negotiation reduces wasteful litigation and gets users actual interoperability faster than years of appeals.
The risks ahead
None of this means Japan has solved the problem. Two risks loom. First, the JFTC is a small agency by global standards and may struggle to staff complex technical reviews — the European Commission has roughly five times the dedicated headcount. Second, the temptation to expand scope after early wins is real; the DMA itself was sold as a narrow instrument before its list of services ballooned during negotiation.
For now, though, Tokyo has shipped a credible, calibrated mobile competition law that takes both market-power concerns and platform-integrity concerns seriously. Other jurisdictions — including those still drafting — should be watching closely.