During the antitrust trial that Google is currently going through in the US, several of its trade secrets have been revealed, including how much it pays other brands to stay as the default search engine on mobile devices. It has also been revealed that Google might be paying Android smartphone makers, including Samsung, to push more software updates to devices.
Google strongarms Android OEMs like Samsung to offer more software updates
As noted by TheVerge, Google shares the revenue it generates from the search engine with device makers, including Apple, Motorola, and Samsung. Google CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that Google's tactics in pushing brands to select Google as the default search engine on smartphones and other devices also include revenue sharing with Android OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) to make them push more software updates and better maintain their smartphones over time.
When pushed more, Sundar Pichai confirmed that some of the revenue it offers to Android OEMs depends on devices getting security updates. He said, “More effort goes into developing the next version, and updates are costly… so sometimes they make tradeoffs.” It hints at the tendency of some brands to push software updates to their phones less frequently.
Samsung still puts in more effort to release software updates in comparison
While the focus of this antitrust lawsuit against Google is how it remains the default search engine on Apple's products, it is interesting to note that Google uses revenue-sharing as a tactic to strongarm Android OEMs like Motorola and Samsung to push more frequent software updates to their devices. However, it still shows how much effort Samsung puts into releasing regular software updates to its phones, as Motorola, which also gets revenue sharing, still doesn't push as many software updates as Samsung.
Speaking of software updates, you can check out all the features that One UI 6.0 brings to Samsung phones in the video below.
Author's Note: Samsung used to be relatively slow and infrequent with respect to software updates for its smartphones and tablets. However, over the past three years, the company has improved tremendously. It has become the best in the Android segment regarding software updates. Sometimes, it releases security updates faster than Google does for Pixel phones.
Samsung was also rumored to be in talks with Microsoft to bring ChatGPT and an improved Bing-powered search engine to replace Google in the Samsung Internet web browser. However, Google has been rumored to have extended its deal with Samsung for the default search engine through a better revenue-sharing deal.
