A new report details that Google wants to reduce its reliance on Apple for search revenue. Despite being the leader in search, Google pays Apple billions of dollars yearly to remain the iPhone’s default search engine.
iPhone searchers comprise about 36% of Google’s total search revenue.
Google looking to reduce reliance on Safari for its search revenue
The report comes as the US Justice Department has sued Google for its alleged monopoly in search and advertising. To avoid further regulatory scrutiny, Google has been working on reducing searches conducted through Safari on iPhone (and other platforms), though its efforts began much before the lawsuit.
The move has worked as searches through Chrome or the Google app have increased to 30% in recent years—up from 25% five years ago. However, a report from The Information claims growth has stalled since mid-2023. Google apparently has an internal target of passing 50% of searches through its apps on the iPhone by 2030. But this is easier said than done. Safari comes pre-installed on iPhones, making it the default way many users search.
To get more users to switch to Chrome or the Google app, Google even considered limiting AI overviews in search to its apps. Ultimately, though, the company decided against this move.
In 2022, Google paid Apple a whopping $20 billion to remain the iPhone’s default search engine. This constitutes about 36% of the company’s revenue generated from search ads.
Google and Apple’s search deal is at risk
If the US government wins its lawsuit against Google, the latter might have to end its partnership with Apple. This could result in Google losing billions of dollars in search revenue. On its part, Apple has claimed it prefers Google because it is “the best” and not because of the billions of dollars it receives yearly.
Despite the close partnership between the two companies, Apple partnered with OpenAI and ChatGPT to integrate with Apple Intelligence. The Cupertino giant is open to partnering with other companies, so there’s still the possibility that Gemini integration could eventually come to iPhones. This could give Google another way to push users away from Safari to its apps for conducting searches.
