Samsung Sticks with Google as its Default Search Engine

Samsung Electronics said that it will not change the default search engine on its mobile devices from Alphabet's Google to Microsoft's Bing. This was confirmed after suspending an internal review that explored replacing its default search engine.

Choosing Google for now

Google will remain Samsung's default search engine on its smartphones. According to a report from Reuters, the company suspended an internal review that explored replacing Google with Microsoft's Bing on its browser application that comes pre-installed on the company's smartphones when purchased.

Samsung mistakenly thought that switching to Bing would not cause too much of a disruption, given that the company's smartphone users do not use its company-made browser anyway. Users tend to use an external browser by downloading a different one from its application store or using the pre-installed browsers.

Samsung backs away from this change over relationship concerns with Google and the market's perception of the move. Google served as the default search engine on the company's smartphones since its first model, the Galaxy S, was launched in 2010.

When this news was revealed, The New York Times reported that Google employees were shocked to learn that Samsung has been planning to switch to Bing. The company earns a $3 billion estimate in annual revenue from its contract with Samsung.

Considering to Switch

Samsung is not closing its doors on switching to Bing as reports stated that this does not mean that the company will never consider it. Suspending the internal review is just temporary and might be able to continue in the future when the planned partnership is solidified.

The Verge reported that this exploration from the company is part of the continuing efforts to find ways to diversify its software and consider new offerings to its market, especially since Samsung has been long viewed as being heavily reliant on Google's software.

While both companies are business partners in this category, Samsung and Google compete in certain products. This includes the battle between Samsung's smartphones and Google Pixel phones, along with their versions of tablets, laptops, wearables, and home devices and solutions.

Power of AI

While no confirmation was released by Samsung regarding considering switching to Bing, this might be possible because of Microsoft's rapid expansion into artificial intelligence. Bing gained some traction from different markets after adopting features of Microsoft-backed Open AI's ChatGPT.

Meanwhile, Google has also been planning its own efforts to put AI-powered features on its search engine, making Bard chatbot available to everyone not on its waitlist. Wall Street Journal reported that this will obviously benefit Bing if the switch happens, knowing that Google currently accounts for roughly 93%, while Bing accounts for only about 3%.