Google pays Apple 36 percent of all ad revenue it generates whenever someone does a Google search using Apple’s Safari browser. The number, which was supposed to remain confidential, was revealed by Kevin Murphy, an economics professor at the University of Chicago during his testimony on behalf of Alphabet at the company’s ongoing Justice Department trial in Washington on Monday, Bloomberg reported.
The number shed more light on the relationship between two of the world’s largest tech companies, which has come under antitrust scrutiny in the last few years. The DOJ has accused Google of using its vast resources to maintain market dominance by paying companies like Apple, whose iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices have billions of users collectively, to be the default search engine on Safari. In 2021, Google reportedly paid Apple “around $18 billion” to be the default search engine on Safari, a New York Times report revealed.
Last week, Google and Apple had raised objections making details of their arrangement public, Bloomberg noted. Google said that making more details public “would unreasonably undermine Google’s competitive standing in relation to both competitors and other counterparties” in a court filing.
It’s not clear how much ad revenue Google generates from Safari, but it’s safe to assume that 36 percent of that number would likely be tens of billions of dollars. In 2022, Google’s total revenue was $279.8 billion, and a majority of it came from advertising.
Google and Apple did not respond to Engadget’s request for comment.
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