San Francisco: The US panel was set to grill Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai together over the dominance in their fields of e-retail, smartphone software, social media and Search, respectively.
Apple CEO Tim Cook clarified that the smartphone market is fiercely competitive and companies like Samsung, LG, Huawei, and Google have built very successful smartphone businesses offering different approaches.
In prepared remarks before his appearance, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that "Apple does not have a dominant market share in any market where we do business."
Apple CEO Tim Cook was set to defend the company's 30 percent fee of digital transactions on the App Store.
Apple is facing criticism over its App Store, which is the only way to install consumer software on an iPhone.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp in his prepared remarks.
"Facebook has made Instagram and WhatsApp successful as part of our family of apps," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote.
Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014.
"We have developed new products for Instagram and WhatsApp, and we have learned from those companies to bring new ideas to Facebook. The end result is better services that provide more value to people and advertisers, which is a core goal of Facebook's acquisition strategy," defended Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said that Amazon should be scrutinized.
"Amazon accounts for less than 1% of the $25 trillion global retail markets and less than 4% of retail in the U.S. Unlike industries that are winner-take-all, there's room in retail for many winners," he argued.
For example, more than 80 retailers in the U.S. alone earn over $1 billion in annual revenue.
"Every day, Amazon competes against large, established players like Target, Costco, Kroger, and, of course, Walmart - a company more than twice Amazon's size".
Walmart's online sales grew 74 per cent in the first quarter.
"And customers are increasingly flocking to services invented by other stores that Amazon still can't match at the scale of other large companies, like curbside pickup and in-store returns," said Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos.
In his prepared testimony, Alphabet and Google CEO Pichai said that the company's services like Search offer major benefits for consumers and small businesses.
"We know Google's continued success is not guaranteed. Google operates in highly competitive and dynamic global markets, in which prices are free or falling, and products are constantly improving. Today's competitive landscape looks nothing like it did 5 years ago, let alone 21 years ago, when Google launched its first product, Google Search," he said.
"We also deliberately build platforms that support the innovation of others," he added, referring to the Android operating system.
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(Inputs from IANS)
