European DSA Recipients of Services Report

In accordance with Article 24(2) of the Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 October 2022 on a Single Market For Digital Services and amending Directive 2000/31/EC (the Digital Services Act), set forth below are the numbers of average monthly active recipients in the EU of intermediary services within the scope of that Article, calculated as an average over the period of the six months to 31 January 2023.

Under Article 3(b) of the DSA, “recipients” of an intermediary service are natural or legal persons who use it, in particular for the purposes of seeking information or making it accessible, including business users, consumers and other users. Recipients of an online platform are "active" where they are “actually engaging with the service at least once in a given period of time, by being exposed to information disseminated on the online interface of the online platform, such as viewing it or listening to it, or by providing information”.

Online platforms with 45 million or more average monthly active recipients of the service in the Union, may be designated as very large online platforms (VLOPs). With this framework in mind, the below figures, compiled in accordance with Article 24 (2) of the DSA regarding recipients of the service, are approximated based on information that is readily available to Apple in the normal course of its business:

• iOS App Store: 101 million
• iPadOS App Store: 23 million
• macOS App Store: 6 million
• tvOS App Store: 1 million
• watchOS App Store: under 1 million
• Apple Books: under 1 million
• Podcasts paid subscriptions: under 1 million

Without prejudice to further consideration of the legal characterisation, Apple views each version of the App Store as a distinct online platform under the DSA, and only the iOS App Store may qualify as a VLOP. Nonetheless, Apple intends, on an entirely voluntary basis, to align each of the existing versions of the App Store (including those that do not currently meet the VLOP designation threshold) with the existing DSA requirements for VLOPs because the goals of the DSA align with Apple’s goals to protect consumers from illegal content.