A group of Chinese developers has filed a complaint against Apple over its allegedly “unfair” App Store commission rates to China’s market watchdog, in a fresh challenge to the US tech giant’s lucrative smartphone ecosystem.

The 48 iOS developers claimed that Apple failed to fulfil its promise to offer the lowest commission rate to the Chinese market, according to an open letter to China’s State Administration for Market Regulation.

The developers asked the antitrust regulator to investigate and penalise Apple for allegedly “abusing the company’s market dominance” to implement “unfair and excessively high” costs on local creators, according to the letter published by one of the developers, Tian Junwei, on his WeChat blog on Monday.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

This is not the first time Apple has become a target of Chinese developers. In 2017, a Beijing law firm filed a complaint on behalf of local developers, accusing Apple of removing apps without a proper explanation and taking an excessive 30 per cent cut of in-app transactions. In 2021, a Chinese consumer sued Apple for its high iOS app store fees, but the claim was rejected by a court in Shanghai in 2024.

Apple has been facing similar scrutiny globally. Last year, two civil rights groups lodged a complaint to antitrust regulators in the European Union over Apple’s App Store policies. In July, the company was fined €500 million (US$572.2 million) for violating the EU’s Digital Markets Act. The company lodged an appeal that is still pending.