Claim No: IP-2022-000086 - [2024] EWHC 1430 (IPEC)

Of course without UK sales figures, it is not possible to assess the Claimant’s UK market share. Ms Gupta relies on a Gartner Report of July 2023 assessing the “Application Architecture, Development and Platforms” market, which quantified the market globally as being worth $76 billion in 2021 and $87 billion in 2022. She accepted in cross-examination that in the context of the global market identified by Gartner, the Claimant’s business was small, and further accepted that she had provided no information about the size of the UK market in order to assess the size of the Claimant’s UK market share. Mr Lomas put to her a document from the International Monetary Fund showing that the UK’s Gross Domestic Product based on purchasing power was c. 2.17% of the world GDP, which she accepted was a good guide to UK economic activity within the global context. That would put the UK market size at about $1.888 billion, and means that even if the much higher sales figures in Ms Gupta’s witness statement are correct, the Claimant’s UK market share (at least up to 2022) is quite insignificant, in my judgment, amounting to not much more than the rounding error if $1.888 billion were rounded up to $1.9 billion.

Nonetheless, Ms Gupta’s evidence is that the Claimant is one of the top 4 brands in the UK market for app development, the other main competitors in the low-cost app development space (the Builder Studio Store market) being Shopify, Fiverr and the Defendants and the main competitors for Builder Studio being Bubble, Appian, Shopify and Webflow. She says that the Claimant’s market is “anyone in need for an app”, which is mostly businesses but may be other organisations or individuals, and that the Claimant’s brand are “very well known” in the market because of their advertising and marketing that they do in the UK.