Everyone knows that Apple and Google are rivals in their niche - iOS vs Android, iPhone vs Nexus, etc. This is why some may wonder why Google is the default search engine for mobile Safari, Apple’s pre-installed web browser on its devices. The answer is simple enough: Google paid Apple $1bn in 2014 for being the default search for the hundreds of millions of iPhone users. By the way, this fact was revealed during Google’s lawsuit with another tech giant Oracle, which accused Google of infringing on its patents for programming language Java in its Android OS.
Aside from the $1bn payment, it also became known that Apple and Google shared a portion of the revenue the search giant received from showing adverts to iOS users. This allowed Google to remain the default search engine for mobile Safari and cash in on iOS. In the meantime, the industry experts point out that being the default is important: for example, when Apple switched from Google Maps to its own in-house team for the default map app on iPhones, the new app was heavily criticized for its error-ridden maps. However, 3 years on, the default app was used 3 times as much as Google’s own app, which means that Google can’t get data from millions of users or show them ads.
Meanwhile, Google search is not used anymore elsewhere in iOS: for instance, the default and the only search engine on Apple’s Siri is Microsoft’s Bing. During the same lawsuit it became clear why Google was so eager to pay Apple for access to its users: $1bn is drop in the ocean for the company, as Google’s Android OS became the most popular in the world and has generated revenue of $31bn and profit of $22bn in its lifetime. This can be compared with Apple revenue from the iPhone in the 4th quarter of 2015 alone: more than $32bn – and it doesn’t include its income from the App Store and iAd platforms.
So, why are iOS users as valuable to Google as Android users? Because Google makes money from Android only by receiving a share of the sales of apps and media on the Google Play Store and displaying ads to Android users, while it gets nothing from the sale of Android phones (except from its own Nexus and Pixel-branded devices). In other words, Google has a chance to profit from iOS users by showing them ads without having to develop a whole operating system for them
Aside from the $1bn payment, it also became known that Apple and Google shared a portion of the revenue the search giant received from showing adverts to iOS users. This allowed Google to remain the default search engine for mobile Safari and cash in on iOS. In the meantime, the industry experts point out that being the default is important: for example, when Apple switched from Google Maps to its own in-house team for the default map app on iPhones, the new app was heavily criticized for its error-ridden maps. However, 3 years on, the default app was used 3 times as much as Google’s own app, which means that Google can’t get data from millions of users or show them ads.
Meanwhile, Google search is not used anymore elsewhere in iOS: for instance, the default and the only search engine on Apple’s Siri is Microsoft’s Bing. During the same lawsuit it became clear why Google was so eager to pay Apple for access to its users: $1bn is drop in the ocean for the company, as Google’s Android OS became the most popular in the world and has generated revenue of $31bn and profit of $22bn in its lifetime. This can be compared with Apple revenue from the iPhone in the 4th quarter of 2015 alone: more than $32bn – and it doesn’t include its income from the App Store and iAd platforms.
So, why are iOS users as valuable to Google as Android users? Because Google makes money from Android only by receiving a share of the sales of apps and media on the Google Play Store and displaying ads to Android users, while it gets nothing from the sale of Android phones (except from its own Nexus and Pixel-branded devices). In other words, Google has a chance to profit from iOS users by showing them ads without having to develop a whole operating system for them
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