STOCKHOLM Apple on Wednesday said it remained concerned about privacy and security risks it sees in the new EU Digital Markets Act (DMA), after the European Commission had designated it and five other major tech companies as "gatekeepers" of online services.

"Our focus will be on how we mitigate these impacts and continue to deliver the very best products and services to our European customers," Apple said in a statement.

Businesses labeled gatekeepers under the DMA will be required to make their messaging apps interoperate with rivals and let users decide which apps to pre-install on their devices.

Microsoft said it accepted its designation as gatekeeper, while it welcomed the commission's decision to open an investigation into a possible exemption of Microsoft's services Bing, Edge and Microsoft Ads from the DMA.

Facebook parent company Meta said it was evaluating the commission's designation.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee, writing by Bart Meijer; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten)