Google paid Apple $3 million to remain the default search engine on iPhone

The Android vs iOS battle is age-old, and the rivalry has only intensified in the recent past. Apple was smart enough to remove several Google apps like YouTube and Maps from the iOS home-screen. While the fierce competition is on-going, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the two companies don’t enjoy the longstanding, mutual benefiting relationship. Take for instance, the Safari app – a default search engine that exists on both, Android and iOS-powered platforms. What comes across as surprising is that Apple hasn’t really replaced Safari as such. In fact, they have consciously made a decision not to do so. As pointed by BGR, this is essentially because Google pays Apple a lot of money for the same.

“With search-based advertising still accounting for the lion’s share of Google’s revenue, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that the search giant is more than willing to pay Apple an exorbitant fee to keep Google search front and center on mobile Safari,” the report reads. Analyst A.M. Sacconaghi Jr. states that Google is going to pay Apple a $3 million this year, for the right to remain the default search engine on iOS.

CNBC reports, “Court documents indicate that Google paid Apple $1B in 2014, and we estimate that total Google payments to Apple in FY 17 may approach $3B,” Bernstein analyst A.M. Sacconaghi Jr. said. “Given that Google payments are nearly all profit for Apple, Google alone may account for 5 per cent of Apple’s total operating profits this year, and may account for 25 per cent of total company OP growth over the last two years.”