New documents reveal Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to remain iPhone’s default search engine

Google paid Apple an astonishing $20 billion in 2022 to continue being the default search engine on iPhones, iPads and Macs, reports Bloomberg. The payment amount was revealed in newly unsealed court documents from the US government’s ongoing antitrust lawsuit against Google.

For years, Google has paid Apple billions per year to be pre-selected as the default search option in the Safari web browser on Apple devices. However, the two tech companies had kept the exact payment figures secret until these court documents were unsealed.

The $20 billion that Google paid Apple in 2022 amounts to over $1 billion per month, Bloomberg reported, citing testimony from Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services, Eddy Cue. A year before in 2021, the deal amount was said to be around $15 million.
Lawsuit claims Google blocked competition The antitrust lawsuit by the US Department of Justice alleges that Google’s deal with Apple, along with other similar deals, allowed Google to illegally block competition and create a monopoly in online search and advertising.

Having the default status on Safari’s browser on iPhones gives Google a major advantage over rival search engines like Microsoft’s Bing, the lawsuit claims.

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In fact, the unsealed court documents showed that Microsoft repeatedly tried to get Apple to make Bing the default instead of Google on iPhones. Bloomberg reported that Microsoft said it was willing to give Apple 90% or more of the ad revenue Bing generates.

But Cue testified that Apple stuck with Google because its search engine was better than Bing in quality and capabilities.

Google tried to keep payment details secret The new information revealing how much Google paid Apple only came to light because lawyers for the US government wanted to make the financial details public as part of their antitrust case against Google.

Both Google and Apple had attempted to keep the payment figures secret and not disclose the terms of their deal, according to Bloomberg’s reporting.

Final arguments in the government’s antitrust lawsuit against Google will take place this week, with a decision expected later in 2024. If Google loses, it may be forced to stop paying Apple billions to remain the default iPhone search engine.