BRUSSELS, April 29 (Reuters) - Apple's ( AAPL )

operating system for iPads has been designated as a gatekeeper

under the bloc's landmark tech rules by EU antitrust regulators

because of its importance to business users, the European

Commission said on Monday.

Under the Digital Markets Act which came into force this

year, 22 services owned by Apple ( AAPL ), Alphabet's Google,

Microsoft ( MSFT ), Amazon ( AMZN ), Meta Platforms ( META ) and

TikTok owner ByteDance have already been labelled gatekeepers

which control access to their platforms.

The European executive's decision followed an investigation

launched in September last year. Apple's ( AAPL ) operating system iOS,

its browser Safari and its App Store were designated gatekeepers

last year.

"Our market investigation showed that despite not meeting

the thresholds, iPadOS constitutes an important gateway on which

many companies rely to reach their customers," EU antitrust

chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

The Commission said Apple's ( AAPL ) business user numbers exceeded

the quantitative threshold by eleven times, while its end user

numbers were close to the threshold and were predicted to rise

in the near future. It said both business users and end users

are locked into iPadOS because of its large ecosystem.

Apple ( AAPL ), which has six months to comply with the DMA, said it

would "continue to constructively engage with the European

Commission to comply with the DMA across all designated

services".

DMA breaches can cost companies fines as much as 10% of

their global annual turnover.