Samsung reportedly decides to keep Google as the default search engine on Galaxy devices

Last month Samsung put quite a scare into Google when rumors started to circulate that the Korean phone manufacturer was going to replace the Google search engine on its Galaxy phones with Microsoft's Bing. The latter was the shiniest search engine in town because of its integration with conversational AI chatbot ChatGPT, and Google had been hearing through the grapevine that its search engine was about to play the role of a jilted lover.

As it turns out, Google can relax-for now. The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that according to people familiar with the matter, Samsung has decided to suspend an internal review about whether it should replace Google Search with Bing on the Samsung Internet app.  The app is pre-installed on Galaxy phones (as an aside, it is a fabulous Android browser and can be installed from the Google Play Store).

Samsung at first felt that switching to Bing wouldn't matter since usage of the Samsung Internet Browser app was low and most Galaxy device owners use the Chrome browser, which is also pre-installed on Galaxy devices, or other mobile browser apps. But Samsung has decided to table the discussions for now because it is concerned about how such a move would be perceived by the market. Samsung is also worried about how Google might take getting switched for Bing since the two tech giants have partnered up on some business ventures.

Samsung's phones, for example, run on Google's Android operating system and recently Google and Samsung teamed up to promote Sammy's top-of-the-line Galaxy S23 Ultra smartphone. Google also buys chips from Samsung and is a customer of Samsung Foundry, the unit that manufactures chips for customers. The Journal's sources say that Samsung is not permanently giving up on replacing Google search for Bing although Google has been the default engine on Samsung phones dating back to the first Galaxy S model released in 2010.

Google's search engine is the most visited website on the planet and is used on 93% of searches conducted on mobile devices and computers and Bing's share amounts to a paltry 3% according to the latest data from StatCounter. Google pays Apple $8 billion-$12 billion a year according to a 2020 Justice Department lawsuit that was aimed at preventing what the government said were Google's anti-competitive practices. Google is believed to have a similar arrangement with Samsung although the dollar amount it pays the company is smaller.

Why would Samsung pay so much money to Apple and Samsung to be the default search option on their mobile devices? The answer is that Google brings in revenue from its mobile search app that greatly exceeds what it pays for the right to be on these devices. For example, it is estimated that Google generates $3 billion in revenue annually from the placement of its search app on Samsung phones.