Ryan Haines / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google is reportedly paying Samsung an “enormous” amount of money to pre-install Gemini on its devices.
- A Google employee testified that Google is paying Samsung a monthly fee to load Gemini on devices.
- This news comes after a US judge found Google guilty of monopolistic behavior by paying companies to pre-install its search engine.
Google has long paid smartphone makers and companies like Mozilla to pre-install its services on their platforms. Now, it turns out Google is paying Samsung a ton of money to pre-install Gemini on Galaxy phones.
Google vice-president of platforms and device partnerships Peter Fitzgerald testified in court (h/t: Bloomberg) that Google started paying Samsung a monthly fee to pre-install Gemini on Galaxy devices. The executive said these monthly payments started in January and that the contract was set to last for at least two years. The total fee wasn’t disclosed, but a Department of Justice lawyer claimed that Google was paying Samsung an “enormous sum of money.”
In addition to payments for each device with Gemini out of the box, Fitzgerald testified that Google also pays Samsung a percentage of revenue from ads displayed in Gemini.
A new antitrust battleground?
This testimony comes after Google lost a major US court case last year. The judge found Google guilty of monopolistic behavior by paying to have its search engine as the default search service on devices and browsers. The judge is reportedly hearing this latest testimony in order to decide on changes Google needs to make to its business following its legal defeat.
News of Google’s payments to Samsung for Gemini also follows reports in 2023 that Samsung was considering a switch from Google to Bing. This news came after Microsoft beat Google to the generative AI punch with Bing Chat (now Copilot). So don’t be surprised if this latest revelation attracts the attention of rival AI services.
