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Apple Demands $9 Billion From Google For Default Search On iOS (neowin.net)
A new report from Goldman Sachs analyst Rod Hall suggests that Apple may be demanding $9 billion from Google to have its search engine as the default in Safari on iOS. This is a steep increase to last year's estimated $3 billion licensing costs and $1 billion licensing costs in 2014. Hall suggests that Apple may even increase the costs to $12 billion in 2019. Neowin reports: It's unclear if Google's supplanting Microsoft as the default search provider for Siri and Spotlight last year is responsible for the purported price hike from Apple, though it may, at least partially, explain the sudden jump. The other explanation could be that previous estimates of the value of the agreement between the two tech giants were undervalued, given that apart from the $1 billion figure from 2014, we don't really have any hard evidence pertaining to the actual sum of these payments. Hall does indicate that "Apple is one of the biggest channels of traffic acquisition for Google' and despite the high cost, it is quite likely that Google will agree to pay the increased sum."
Total iPhone units sold between 2007 and 2017 worldwide is 216.76 million. So not literally a billion; in fact, the article is specifically about iOS, so we can leave out macs. An iPhone will stay in use for about 5 years so let's assume that half of those 216 million devices is still using Safari and will get the search provider pushed. That's 9 billion for 100 million users, or USD 90 per IOS user. Assume I made a mistake and it would only amount to a third of that per user. I would still be worried if Google would pay my phone manufacturer that for providing me ads.
Total iPhones sold in fiscal year 2017 were 217 million. In February 2017, Apple had 1.3 billion active devices, so 7 USD/user.