Google pays Apple $18B to $20B a year to keep its search in iPhone | Hacker News Reader

Google pays Apple $18B to $20B a year to keep its search in iPhone

theregister.com

59 pointsrntn23 comments

The amount ranges sound right. It's not what Google is willing to/could pay for user acquisition. It's the amount competitors (Microsoft!) could pay for it if Google didn't, and that's what sets the market. And, furthermore, the sum needs to be enticing to Apple, who could also opt to give the user a sorted list of search providers on first use. Having a search default has its reputational risks, like looking cheap, biased or "sold" to Google.

A sorted list, with promotional results marked at the top? Seems familiar...

> who could also opt to give the user a sorted list of search providers on first use

More technical settings before first use doesn't sounds like the way Cupertino would go. Instead, I suspect they'd default to their own search engine (even if that's simply a wrapper), and maybe put the search-engine setting somewhere more prominent.

For that amount of money, they should try to have GoogleMaps be an option for opening addresses in iPhones. Right now Apple open Map when you click on an address, even if you have Apple Maps uninstalled which is quite infuriating

I feel like Apple providing the option to switch out default apps for browser and email is telling, as it reveals they both know and care enough to not let Google Maps be swapped in for mapping and overtake them.

Would be interesting to hear from the accountants in HN if this violates U.S. GAAP rules for publicly-traded rules regarding disclosures.

https://viewpoint.pwc.com/dt/us/en/pwc/accounting_guides/fin...

I think they have "traffic acquisition cost", they reported it as 48B in 2022.

These numbers seem too high. That's like 10% of Google's annual revenue.

What percentage of their ad revenue is generated from iPhone users searches?

Then that means they either make more than that amount from searches made on iOS, or they consider that amount as the cost of doing business to keep their search engine as the default on iOS, and they'd lose more money if they didn't.

And it's 5% of apples revenue.

and about 20-25% of Apple's net profit.

yes and it's about equivalent to Google's entire net profit.

Does the analyst offer any explanation where he got his figures from? No. Then you should assume they were pulled out of the ass

At some point I hope Google forces the issue and stops paying, just to see what happens.

It’s not like if Bing defaults on iPhone then all of a sudden everyone will like Bing.

They can probably build a better 'google' in a couple of years with that kinda of cash

This is how Google can discount their Pixel for replacing iPhone

That's a lot of money coming from just one service.

Does this mean Apple is a major ad-tech player involved in buying and selling their own customer data (through partner comany but that does not matter much does it)?

It’s trivial to change default search provider, not sure why Apple wouldn’t take the money. It’s still up to the user.

Defaults are powerful, most people don't notice or care

Yeah. This is an understatement, and its not a weak statement.

Defaults are quite literally worth about $18-$20bn simply in the iOS market.

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