Google gave Samsung $8 billion over four years to ensure that the Play Store, Google Search, and Google Assistant remained standard services on Samsung smartphones. The details were disclosed in a statement provided during the legal dispute between Google and Epic Games, as reported by Bloomberg.
Google spent $8 billion to ensure that the Play Store is included as a standard feature on Galaxy phones.
Google admitted to making deals with Android phone makers to have its apps pre-installed as the default on devices, as revealed during questioning by Epic Games lawyers. It was noted that Samsung phones and other devices account for about half of the revenue in the Play Store.
In 2019, Google initiated a project known as “Banyan” to maintain the Play Store on Samsung devices in conjunction with Samsung’s Galaxy Store. Initially, a $200 million offer over four years was made to Samsung, but this evolved into three agreements totaling $8 billion.
Google saved $1 billion over four years by making the Play Store the exclusive app store on Samsung smartphones’ home screens, based on an internal Google document. However, the vice president of Google’s partnerships stated that there was never an agreement between Google and Samsung to exclude the Galaxy Store from the initial screen of Galaxy smartphones.
