Ryan Haines / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google apparently paid Samsung $8 billion over 4 years to maintain Search, Assistant, and Play Retailer as default providers on its telephones.
- Paperwork reveal Google additionally needed the Galaxy Retailer to be accessible by way of the Play Retailer at one level.
The continuing Google vs. Epic trial has introduced out one other fascinating piece of knowledge. As per testimony introduced by Epic Video games (by way of Bloomberg), Google paid Samsung $8 billion over a interval of 4 years to maintain Search, Assistant, and Play Retailer as default providers on Samsung telephones.
When questioned by Epic’s legal professionals on Monday, James Kolotouros, Vice President for Partnerships at Google, stated that Google struck offers with Android telephone makers to make sure their units had been pre-loaded with the Google Play Retailer. Kolotouros testimony additional revealed that Samsung’s telephones and different units account for half or extra of your entire Google Play Retailer income.
In 2019, Google reportedly ran an initiative referred to as “Undertaking Banyan.” Underneath it, the corporate invested funds so the Google Play Retailer may stay on Samsung units alongside the Galaxy Retailer. The corporate even supplied to pay $200 million over 4 years to Samsung to make the Galaxy Retailer accessible inside the Play Retailer, full with its billing system. Nonetheless, these plans had been later scrapped, and Google reportedly signed three offers value $8 billion with Samsung.
One inner doc additionally reveals how Google saved $ 1 billion over 4 years by backtracking on its request to make Play Retailer the one app retailer proven on the house display of Samsung units. Nonetheless, as per Kolotouros, Google and Samsung by no means agreed to bar Samsung from placing its Galaxy retailer on the house display of its units.
Epic is attempting to point out that Google discouraged third-party app shops on Android units by paying machine makers to pre-install and make the Google Play Retailer the default app downloading vacation spot. Google has been hanging such offers for a very long time, and they’re additionally underneath scrutiny in a separate anti-trust suit introduced on by the Division of Justice.
In the meantime, Google’s legal professionals introduced an inner 2019 e mail from Jamie Rosenberg, the previous lead for Google Play and Android operations, saying his group was “halting” Undertaking Banyan as “it created an incentive dynamic the place retailer groups could be competing with one another.”