Google pays Apple $1 billion to be default search engine on iOS

We always knew Google might be paying Apple a crazy amount of money to make sure they were the default search engine of choice on all of Apple’s iDevices, but now we might actually know how much the Search Giant pays up.

According to Morgan Stanley analyst Scott Devitt, Google pays Apple about $1 billion to be the default search engine for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch browser, with that fee expected to go up in the next couple years. It’s a lotta money but it’s probably worth the dough for Google, to make sure they’re on what are arguably the most popular tablets and phones on the planet.

It’s not just about the money either, since Devitt also reported that Google and Apple have a “per-device” deal instead of a revenue sharing agreement, which sees Apple take in 75 cent from every $1 Google makes from ads, for every iDevice. Still, search with ads is Google’s main means of cash so it’d make sense that they’d want to expand its search visibility on mobile as well.

And on the other side of the mobile war, Microsoft forces users to use the company’s own Bing Search on Windows Phones, heh. More info over at the source link below.