According to some analysts, it seems that Google will have to allocate a considerable amount of money to pay licensing fees to Samsung. First, it had to pay the fees to Apple, but this time, the price is highly likely to be somewhat higher. Namely, it has been estimated that the sum for maintaining it as a default search engine on Samsung devices could go up to $ 3.5 billion.
In 2014, Google renewed its license payment contract with Apple and paid $1 billion. Much to everyone’s surprise, it has been recently announced that the sum Google has to pay now to remain the default search engine on Safari for iPhone and iPad has increased threefold, i.e., it has to pay $3 billion to Apple to be the search engine of choice on its devices. But then, JoongAng Ilbo, South Korean daily newspaper, broke the news that the price for Samsung is even higher, reaching as much as $3.5 billion.
The reason why these numbers are this high is that both Samsung and Apple are selling more and more devices, and all these have Google as their default engine, which contributes significantly to Google’s mobile search revenue. There is no doubt these two are the most popular brands currently, so as long as the sale of their products is going well, it could be said that it pays off to give such a large amount of money for licensing fees.
However, what might be the problem is that Huawei is very likely to reach the top of the global smartphone shipment rankings in not so distant future, so the chances are more eye-watering costs await Google. We assume it is only the matter of time when the great Chinese manufacturer will ask for its licensing fees, which will probably be at least as costly as the previously mentioned.
