Report: Google pays over $1.5 billion to Apple to win ‘iPhone race’

Google pays at least $1.5 billion every year to be the default search engine on the Safari internet browser on iPhones.

This amount is just meant for one country– UK, as revealed by regulators in the UK who are digging into the deal between Apple and Google over which search engine works by default the moment someone opens Safari on their iPhone.

Not to forget, Google is just another search engine option for Safari users. There’s Yahoo, Bing and DuckDuckGo as well.

Actually the thing is – very few iPhone users seem to visit the settings menu of their iPhones and think of changing the search engine of Safari.

This is why Google happily pays billions to Apple to stay default: to keep out Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo out of the iPhone race.

Well, if you think “at least $1.5 billion” every year in just the UK is a big amount then know that there is no official figure available publicly when it comes to how much Google pays Apple globally for the default position.

For the record, a quick Google search itself reveals that there are at least 140 search engines globally. Now you know why paying for the default position matters.

As per a report by The Verge, citing a new report by UK government’s Competition and Markets Authority, this fees that Google pays to Apple for the default position “creates a significant barrier to entry and expansion” for competitors of Google.

In order to make it a level playing field for other search engines, the regulators in the UK believe that they should either put a cap on how much Apple can charge companies for being the default service provider or give an option to the users to choose the service while they are setting up their iPhones.

• As per the report, in 2014, court documents revealed that Google paid Apple $1 billion to secure the default position in the US.

Now, documents revealed that Google paid $1.5 billion to Apple in the UK last year.

This is concerning for the regulators as the UK deal is “50% higher than what Google paid for US placement more than six years ago for a far more populous region” as per the report by The Verge.

(Inputs – Gadgets Now)

See also – How to Mirror an iPhone to a Mac