On the Record · Apple
Apple competitors, on the record
The companies Apple names as competitors in its annual reports, 2022 to 2025, and the companies that name Apple, each with the sentence and the filing.
Who Apple names
| Company | Named in |
|---|---|
| Android | 2022, 2023, 2024 |
| Nintendo | 2022 |
| PlayStation | 2022 |
| Windows | 2022 |
| Xbox | 2022 |
In its own words
Android, Nintendo, PlayStation, Windows, Xbox
Word for word“The Company believes the availability of third-party software applications and services for its products depends in part on the developers’ perception and analysis of the relative benefits of developing, maintaining and upgrading such software and services for the Company’s products compared to competitors’ platforms, such as Android for smartphones and tablets, Windows for personal computers and tablets, and PlayStation, Nintendo and Xbox for gaming platforms.” 10-K for 2024
Who names Apple
Companies whose own annual reports name Apple as a competitor.
Word for word“We also face significant competition from companies that design processors based on the ARM architecture, such as Apple with its M series products, Qualcomm with its Snapdragon products and MediaTek with its Kompanio products.” 10-K for 2025
Word for word“For example, each of Apple and Google have integrated competitive products with iOS and Android, respectively.” 10-K for 2025
Word for word“For example, Microsoft Corporation, Alphabet Inc., Apple Inc., Meta Platforms, Inc. and others are offering alternative means for messaging and making wireless voice calls that, in certain cases, can be used in lieu of the wireless providers' voice service, as well as alternative means of accessing video content.” 10-K for 2024
Word for word“Competitors to Office include software and global application vendors, such as Apple, Cisco Systems, Google, Meta, Proofpoint, Slack, Symantec, Zoom, and numerous web-based and mobile application competitors as well as local application developers.” 10-K for 2024
Word for word“Apple and Google are similarly positioned on mobile devices.” 10-K for 2022
Word for word“Our primary competition consists of facilitators and providers of legacy payment and consumer loan methods, such as credit and debit cards, including those provided by card issuing banks; technology solutions, including those provided by financial technology or payment companies; mobile wallets, such as Apple and PayPal; and pay-over-time solutions providers, including Block and Klarna.” 10-K for 2025
Word for word“Competition may also increase from large technology companies, such as Apple, Amazon (which acquired One Medical in February 2023), Facebook, Verizon, or Microsoft, who may wish to develop or expand their own telehealth solutions or partner with our other competitors, as well as from large retailers like Kroger, CVS Health Corporation (which signed a definitive agreement to acquire Oak Street Health in February 2023), Walgreens or Walmart.” 10-K for 2022
Word for word“NOOK competes with many online digital businesses, notably Amazon.com and Apple.” 10-K for 2019
Word for word“These product offerings include, but are not limited to: Netflix, Hulu, Apple+, Prime Video, YouTube TV, Disney+, ESPN+, Paramount + , Max, STARZ, Peacock, Fubo, Philo and Tubi and certain bundles of these offerings.” 10-K for 2024
Word for word“Certain features of our platform compete in the cloud storage market with products offered by Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Adobe and in the content collaboration market with products offered by Microsoft, Atlassian, Slack (now part of Salesforce) and Google.” 10-K for 2025
Word for word“• We may not be able to engage consumers as effectively as our large competitors with broad ecosystems – Some of our competitors, such as Alibaba, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple and Meta (Facebook and Instagram), are larger than we are, have greater resources, have a dominant and secure position in other industries or certain significant markets, or offer other goods and services and product ecosystems to consumers and merchants that we do not offer, which can drive consumers to, and keep them locked-in to, their platforms instead of using ours.” 10-K for 2025
Word for word“For example, Apple sells the Apple Watch, which is a smartwatch with broad-based functionalities, including some health and fitness tracking capabilities, and Apple has sold a significant volume of its smartwatches since introduction.” 10-K for 2019
Word for word“In addition, we face strong competition in the watch category from technology companies that offer alternatives to our traditional watches, such as Apple, Garmin, Google and Samsung.” 10-K for 2026
Word for word“Garmin believes that its principal competitors for fitness products are Apple, Bryton, Coros, Elite, Google, Huawei, Oura, Polar, Samsung, SRAM, Suunto, Wahoo Fitness, Whoop, Xiaomi, Zepp Health, and Zwift.” 10-K for 2025
Word for word“Security: Our principal competitors in this segment include Apple, Bitdefender, ESET, F-Secure, Google, Kaspersky, Malwarebytes, McAfee, Microsoft, Trend Micro and Webroot.” 10-K for 2026
Word for word“Our primary competitors are Acer Inc., Apple Inc., ASUSTeK Computer Inc., Dell Inc., Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Lenovo Group Limited, Logitech International S.A., Microsoft Corporation, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., and Toshiba Corporation.” 10-K for 2025
Word for word“We face direct competition from other mobile messaging service providers such as Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger and Tencent’s WeChat, as well as mobile messaging services for specific operating platforms such as Apple’s iMessage.” 20-F for 2019
Word for word“Keyboards & Combos Apple Inc. ("Apple"), Dell Technologies ("Dell"), HP, Lenovo Group Ltd. ("Lenovo"), Eweadn, Mchose, Keychron, Cherry, Amazon Basics and regional computer peripheral computer brands are the main competitors in our keyboard and combo product lines.” 10-K for 2026
Word for word“Moovit’s free and subscription-based application competition includes Alphabet, Apple, Citymapper, and Transit.” 10-K for 2025
Word for word“Apple, Google and Amazon are examples of competitors of this kind.” 10-K for 2017
Word for word“Large companies such as Amazon, Apple, and Google offer TV streaming devices that compete with Roku streaming devices and those of our licensed Roku TV partners and the Roku TV OS.” 10-K for 2025
Word for word“Competition for Pandora’s services are primarily offered by entities that provide music and entertainment services as a small part of a larger business, such as Apple, Google, Amazon and YouTube.” 10-K for 2025
Word for word“Many of these companies, such as Alphabet (including Google and YouTube), Apple, ByteDance (TikTok and affiliated joint ventures), Meta (including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp), Pinterest, Reddit and X (formerly Twitter), may have greater financial and human resources and, in some cases, larger user bases.” 10-K for 2025
Word for word“We compete against smart-living and point-product companies such as Alarm.com, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Crestron, Lutron, Savant, Sonos, and Ubiquiti.” 10-K for 2023
Word for word“Our competition includes established, well-known sellers of audio products such as Bose, Samsung (and its subsidiaries and brands Harman International, Denon, Polk Audio and Bowers and Wilkens, and JBL), Sony, Bang & Olufsen, Sennheiser, Apple, Google, and Amazon.” 10-K for 2025
Word for word“Some of our competitors, including Apple, Alphabet, and Amazon, have developed, and are continuing to develop, devices for which their audio streaming services are preloaded or may also be set as the default providers, which puts us at a significant competitive disadvantage.” 20-F for 2025
Word for word“Microsoft, Google, Apple and other technology companies also compete with wireless carriers by offering alternative means for making wireless voice calls that, in certain cases, can be used in lieu of the wireless provider’s voice or text services, as well as alternative means of accessing video content.” 10-K for 2019
Word for word“We also compete with online retailers such as Amazon.com, mass merchants such as Walmart and Target, warehouse clubs such as Costco, computer and electronics retail stores such as Best Buy, specialty technology stores such as Apple, print and marketing businesses such as FedEx Office, and a wide range of other retailers, including grocery stores, drug stores, discount retailers, and traditional office supply retail stores.” 10-K for 2017
Word for word“We also face competition from online game developers and distributors who have primarily focused on specific international markets and with high-profile companies with significant online presences with new and expanded mobile gaming offerings, such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft.” 10-K for 2026
Word for word“Further, competition from additional entrants into the market for development and production of original programming, such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Hulu, Netflix and YouTube, continues to increase.” 10-K for 2019
Word for word“However, we expect competition to intensify in the future as we face increasing competition from competitors who are building their own smart home platforms, such as Amazon, Apple and Google, as well as from companies that offer single-point connected devices.” 10-K for 2022
Word for word“We also face potential competition from in-house solutions and non-traditional media service providers, such as Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google, and, if they increase their focus on sports-related content, including through over-the-top, or OTT, platforms, we may find it difficult to compete, particularly as some of the potential competition has greater financial, technical and other resources than we do.” 20-F for 2019
Word for word“We face competition from legacy web-based meeting services providers, including Cisco Webex and GoTo, bundled productivity suite providers with communications offerings, including Microsoft 365 (with Teams) and Google Workspace (with Meet), and UCaaS and legacy web-based meeting providers, including Avaya, RingCentral, 8x8, and in our Contact Center offerings, Five9, Inc., Genesys, and NICE inContact, as well as consumer-facing platforms that can support small- or medium-sized businesses, including Amazon, Apple, and Facebook.” 10-K for 2026
Word for word“As we expand our global operations and gaming offerings, we increasingly face competition from online game developers and distributors who have primarily focused on specific international markets, such as NetEase, Netmarble and Tencent in Asia, and high-profile companies with significant online presences with new and expanded gaming offerings, such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and Snap.” 10-K for 2021
Read from Apple’s annual reports (10-K for 2025, 10-K for 2024, 10-K for 2023, 10-K for 2022) and the financial data it files with the SEC, as of 2025-10-31. Every quotation is word for word from the filing linked beside it; how these pages are built and checked. The full record is in its company data sheet.