In some European and Latin American countries, the Epic Games Store will be pre-installed on Android smartphones, including the ones from Samsung.
Those phones will be sold through cellular network carrier Telefónica.
Galaxy phones sold through Telefónica will come with Epic Games Store pre-installed
Telefónica has announced that it will begin pre-installing the Epic Games Store on every new Android smartphone sold through its network. The network carrier serves in Germany, Latin America, Spain, and the UK.
This pre-installation is a part of Telefónica's long-term partnership to bring the smash hit game Fortnite to Android smartphones.
While the Epic Games Store launched for Android a few months ago, this will be the first time it will be pre-installed on new smartphones.
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This issue started when Epic Games sued Google in 2020, alleging that the latter bribed carriers and smartphone brands not to pre-install phones with games like Fortnite and third-party app stores.
In December 2023, the federal jury concluded that Google turned the Play Store and Google Play Billing system into a monopoly. Last month, Judge James Donato barred Google from making any further deals with smartphone brands and carriers for Play Store exclusivity.
Apprently, Epic Games made deals with multiple smartphone brands, including Huawei, OnePlus, and Samsung, to pre-install its game store on their phones, but things didn't pan out due to several issues. Epic recently sued Samsung over issues related to the Auto Blocker feature on Samsung phones.
Telefónica now seems ready to ship phones from its network with the Epic Games Store.
