As the Epic v. Google lawsuit continues, we learned today that Samsung devices, as of early 2019, accounted for “half or more” of Google Play revenue.
This was revealed in testimony today (via Bloomberg) by Google’s Vice President for Partnerships James Kolotouros.
In 2020, Google — as part of three deals — agreed to pay Samsung $8 billion over four years to have Search, Assistant, and the Play Store be the default services.
Before that, Google proposed and then abandoned a plan that would prevent Samsung from placing the Galaxy Store on homescreens. One of Google’s arguments in the case is that this was in service of improving the Android experience to counter Apple and prospective iPhone switchers.
For non-Samsung partners, including non-Android OEMs and wireless carriers, Google proposed spending $2.9 billion in 2020 (growing to $4.5 billion in 2023) to guarantee the availability of search, Play, and other “critical apps” on devices. This includes offering Google Play and some Search ad revenue to the manufacturers. This is known as RSA 3.0 (via The Verge), with OnePlus getting the following for abiding:
- 20 percent of “net basic ad revenue”
- 10 percent of “net optimized ad revenue”
- 5 percent of “net optimized Play transaction revenue”
- 15 percent of “net premier ad revenue”
- 20 percent of “net Play transaction revenue”
Furthermore, there is an “RSA 3.0 Premier tier” of devices, which are eligible for full revenue share, where manufacturers have to pre-install Google apps and cannot include competing ones. However, outside of that tier, it’s possible to preload competing app stores.
Google argues that these deals also allow it to require “no less than 6 security updates in a calendar year.”
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