The judicial scenario between Google and Epic Games is on fire. This battle is leaving much more to tell, and it seems that now New revelations have come to light about Google’s multimillion-dollar agreements with Samsung and Apple, which have become the highlight.
In the dock, Google is facing allegations of antitrust practices, and the new information revealed gives some details on how the company has invested billions to secure its position in the smartphone ecosystem.
Specific, Google paid no more and no less than $8 billion to Samsung over four years to make Search, Assistant and the Play Store the main stars on this famous brand’s mobile phones..
James Kolotouros, Google’s VP of Partnerships, sat on the stand and recounted how Google secured its place in Android devices, reporting that more than 50% of Play Store revenue comes from Samsung.
Google releases $8 billion to dominate Samsung devices
In 2019, Google launched “Project Banyan” with the intention of ensuring the presence of its official store on Samsung devices, even offering to pay $200 million over four years to include the Galaxy Store within the Play Store. However, this plan was scrapped and Google reportedly signed three deals totaling $8 billion with Samsung.
The disclosure of an internal document has also shown Google’s strategy to save $1 billion by abandoning the idea of making the Google Play Store the only app store on the home screen of Samsung devices.
However, Kolotouros claimed that Google and Samsung never agreed to prevent the Galaxy Store from appearing on the home screen, underscoring Google’s idea of coexisting with other app stores.
Epic Games continues its legal battle against Google
Epic Games has used these revelations to support its argument that Google discouraged third-party app stores on Android devices by paying manufacturers to pre-install and favor their official Play Store.
Such deals, long known, are also under scrutiny in a separate antitrust lawsuit filed by the Justice Department. Google has defended its position, arguing that these agreements are essential to promote competition and prevent users from switching to other platforms, such as Apple’s iPhones.
And Google demands the voice of the experts
In turn, Kevin Murphy, economic guru, was called by Google to give his point of view. According to him, the payments that Google makes to Apple, Samsung and others are just part of the normal competitive game. According to Murphy, Apple and others were playing “pay to play,” taking on Google and its search engine Bing. Is it fair competitive behavior or foul play? The court will decide.
Murphy too pointed out that these payments actually translate into benefits for users, since, according to him, all this covert framework in the end translates into cheaper cell phones or more attractive data plans. Of course, Google is defending these payments as normal competitive practices and has argued the same as Murphy, in the words of Google CEO Sundar Pichai himself.
There is no doubt that stratospheric payments, pre-installation of applications and the more than titanic competition between technology giants currently define a world where the fight for user preference has a high price. As the trial progresses, for the moment we have to wait, but at least give everyone a glimpse of what the ins and outs of the industry are like..
