Court documents reveal Google’s payments to Apple increased to an eye-watering $20 billion

• Alphabet paid Apple $20 billion in 2022 to remain Safari’s default search engine, court documents show.
• That’s a $2 billion increase compared to the reported amount Google paid Apple in 2021.
• The deal is key evidence in a US antitrust lawsuit alleging Google has an illegal search monopoly.

The price to be the default search engine on iPhones, iPads, and Macs has apparently gone up.

Newly disclosed court documents from the US Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Google indicate the tech giant paid over $20 billion in 2022 to secure itself as the default search engine on Apple’s Safari browser.

That’s at least $2 billion more than the reported price it paid Apple in 2021. Google reportedly paid Apple around $18 billion in 2021, surpassing a billion dollars every month, according to court documents.

Public disclosure of the documents is a big deal, because both parties have kept quiet about the exact dollar amount of the arrangement, and the numbers have also been excluded from SEC filings.

At the trial last fall, Apple execs remained cryptic about the payment and said Google spent “billions” on a deal with Apple. A witness later accidentally revealed Google pays 36% of the revenue it earns from search ads through Safari.

The $20 billion deal with Apple is a key piece of evidence in the US’ landmark antitrust lawsuit against Google. Since 2005, the agreement has required Apple to pre-set Google as Safari’s sole default search engine on its devices, according to the court documents.

It’s a highly valuable deal for Apple. In 2021, Bernstein analysts estimated that Google’s payments to Apple made up over 14-16% of the iPhone maker’s operating income.

While Google has been paying Apple to be the default search engine on Apple devices since 2002, the value of the deal has increased significantly. In 2014, Google was paying $1 billion, according to court documents filed in a separate case involving Oracle.

The court documents say that in search, Google and Apple seek to “work as if [they] are one company.”

An email from Google’s president of global partnerships and corporate development Donald Harrison said in 2018 that Tim Cook’s “overall message to Google was ‘I imagine us as being able to be deep deep partners,'” and “deeply connected” at the point where Apple’s services end and Google’s begin, according to the court documents.

As Apple’s biggest smartphone competitor, the deal also reveals a complex relationship between the two tech giants. Court documents revealed that Google CEO Sundar Pichai at one point said the company “continued to have moments of tension” with Apple, as they compete over Android and iPhone and other rival products.

Spokespeople for Google and Apple didn’t immediately respond to Business Insider’s requests for comment ahead of publication.

Closing arguments are taking place this week in the antitrust case against Google, with the US Department of Justice arguing Google is illegally dominating the search engine market. Google has denied the allegations.

Apple is also fighting its own antitrust lawsuit that accuses the iPhone maker of illegally maintaining a smartphone monopoly by making its competitors’ offerings worse, allegations that Apple has denied.