Google pays Apple about $20 billion a year to remain the main search engine on the platform. According to the latest court decisionthe transaction may be declared invalid.
The court ruling declared that all payments by Google to Apple are illegal in accordance with antitrust laws. It’s interesting how Apple will cope with the loss, as Google’s payments account for about a quarter of its service revenue.
Entering any text into the search bar in Safari will get results directly from Google, unless you set up another search engine. This tiny operation costs Google many billions, but it generates a huge amount of advertising revenue. For Google, this is a great deal because Apple customers are a valuable target group for advertisers: the iPhone is expensive and anyone who owns one has a decent level of income.
For Apple, Google’s payments are virtually worthless, as it does not need to make any changes to the operating system. A 2022 court ruling found that Google paid Apple about $20 billion to remain the default search engine.
- Apple’s services sector brings it $78.13 billion, of which $20 billion comes from Google.
Since Google pays Apple, other search engines are at a disadvantage in the market. This led the Department of Justice to declare Google’s behavior in this area illegal. It is not known for sure, but Google may stop paying Apple to make its business compliant with the court’s decision.
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