Picture: Rajesh Pandey/Cult of Mac
A brand new report particulars that Google desires to scale back its reliance on Apple for search income. Regardless of being the chief in search, Google pays Apple billions of {dollars} yearly to stay the iPhone’s default search engine.
iPhone searchers comprise about 36% of Google’s whole search income.
Google trying to cut back reliance on Safari for its search income
The report comes because the US Justice Division has sued Google for its alleged monopoly in search and promoting. To keep away from additional regulatory scrutiny, Google has been engaged on lowering searches performed by way of Safari on iPhone (and different platforms), although its efforts started a lot earlier than the lawsuit.
The transfer has labored as searches by way of Chrome or the Google app have elevated to 30% in recent times—up from 25% 5 years in the past. Nonetheless, a report from The Data claims development has stalled since mid-2023. Google apparently has an inside goal of passing 50% of searches by way of its apps on the iPhone by 2030. However that is simpler mentioned than carried out. Safari comes pre-installed on iPhones, making it the default method many customers search.
To get extra customers to change to Chrome or the Google app, Google even thought-about limiting AI overviews in search to its apps. In the end, although, the corporate determined in opposition to this transfer.
In 2022, Google paid Apple a whopping $20 billion to stay the iPhone’s default search engine. This constitutes about 36% of the corporate’s income generated from search advertisements.
Google and Apple’s search deal is in danger
If the US authorities wins its lawsuit in opposition to Google, the latter may need to finish its partnership with Apple. This might lead to Google shedding billions of {dollars} in search income. On its half, Apple has claimed it prefers Google as a result of it’s “the best” and never due to the billions of {dollars} it receives yearly.
Regardless of the shut partnership between the 2 corporations, Apple partnered with OpenAI and ChatGPT to combine with Apple Intelligence. The Cupertino large is open to partnering with different corporations, so there’s nonetheless the likelihood that Gemini integration might finally come to iPhones. This might give Google one other approach to push customers away from Safari to its apps for conducting searches.