Apple does not have any intentions of building a search engine or entering the text ad market, said a company executive. The statement comes as an official testimony in the ongoing antitrust case against Google and Apple filed by the US Department of Justice over the default search engine deal that triggers any queries enter by an iPhone user on Safari to directly open in the former’s search engine.
The executive said that if such a deal were to be scrap, it would not mean that Apple would build its search engine platform.
Eddy Cue, the Senior Vice President of Services at Apple, said in an official statement on 23rd December 2024 during the ongoing antitrust case that implicates both the iPhone maker and Google.
As the case was file many years ago after it was known that Apple makes approximately $20 billion (approx. Rs. 1.7 lakh crore) a year from Google as a part of a revenue-sharing deal that makes the latter the default search engine on iPhone devices.
As per the filings, Eddy Cue was responding to the antitrust enforcer’s suggest remedy that would prohibit Google from sharing revenue for search distribution.
Calling them “unacceptable choices”, Eddy Cue said that such a remedy would either lead to Apple removing Google Search as a choice on Safari or let it stay without receiving any compensation for sharing “valuable access to Apple’s users.”
Eddy Cue also said that the propose remedies assume that without a revenue-sharing agreement, Apple would develop its search engine.
Highlighting that the assumption was wrong, Eddy Cue gives three reasons why Apple has so far chosen not to develop a search engine and why it is unlikely to ever enter this market in the future.
- First Reason: Eddy Cue said that Apple is focus on other growth areas and developing a search engine would mean that the company has to divert capital investment and employees from those areas because “creating a search engine would cost billions of dollars and take many years.”
- Second Reason: Involvement of artificial intelligence (AI) and the rapid evolution currently taking place in the search engine segment. Many generative AI-based search engines such as Perplexity and OpenAI’s ChatGPT Search have recently release. A report also claims that Apple is working on an AI Mode for its search product. As per Eddy Cue, that makes it economically risky to devote the huge resources that would be require to create a search engine.
- Third Reason: Eddy Cue said that Apple does not have “the volume of specialise professionals and significant operational infrastructure needed to build and run a successful search advertising business.” As per Eddy Cue, Apple does run niche advertising on its App Store platform, doing it on the search engine is outside of the company’s core expertise.
