Google's Android expands competition, does not hurt it - Google lawyer

Alphabet unit Google's Android mobile operating system expands competition rather than hurt it, its general counsel said on Thursday as the company rebutted EU antitrust charges that it uses the platform to stifle rivals.

The European Commission has also ignored the role played by iPhone maker Apple when it laid out the charge in April, Google general counsel Kent Walker wrote on a blog.

"To ignore competition with Apple is to miss the defining feature of today's competitive smartphone landscape," he said.