Facebook CEO calls Apple ‘significant’ future competitor

Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said he sees Apple Inc. as a “significant” future competitor as the two companies begin to build out rival business lines.

Zuckerberg discussed Facebook’s key product areas on Wednesday during a fourth-quarter earnings call, and said he expects there to be “very significant competitive overlap” with the iPhone maker on several of them, including private messaging and augmented reality glasses. He criticized Apple’s iMessage, suggesting it offered weaker privacy than Facebook’s WhatsApp, and implied iMessage’s market dominance in the U.S. was the result of unfair advantages provided by Apple.