Google Billions: Investing or buying popularity?
Find out how the search giant is investing in the future.
When you search for something on your iPhone or Android phone, chances are you’re using Google. For many of us, Google has become the backbone of search engines. However, the company is also actively investing in its dominant position.
Google spent $ 26.3 billion in 2021 to ensure that its search engine remained mainstream on mobile phones and web browsers, a court document released on Friday showed. The document is part of an ongoing antitrust lawsuit against the tech giant by the U.S. government and several states.
According to a CNBC report, the document shows how much Google paid its partners, such as Apple, to keep its search engine preferred on their devices. The U.S. Department of Justice and a group of state attorneys general have accused Google of abusing its market position by using its influence to block competitors from accessing key distribution channels.
Although the exact amounts of payments to partners are not specified, research firm Bernstein estimates that Google could pay Apple up to $ 19 billion this year for default installation on Apple devices.
The Justice Department accuses Google of allocating significant amounts of money annually to distributors, including major device and browser manufacturers. These tools are used to install the Google search engine as the primary one and, in many cases, to limit the interaction of Google partners with its competitors.
Google defends its position, saying that users can easily change their default search engine.
The court document also provided data on the revenue and expenses of Google’s search business. In 2021, the search division earned more than $ 146 billion, while spending more than $ 26 billion to attract traffic.
In addition, Google announced its intention to invest up to $ 2 billion in the artificial intelligence company Anthropic. Google is already an investor in Anthropic, and this additional investment reflects the company’s increased efforts to strengthen its competitive position, especially in light of Microsoft’s support for OpenAI.
