HONG KONG – Microsoft’s Bing may replace Alphabet’s Google as the default search service on Samsung’s devices, according to a New York Times report on Sunday.
Samsung Electronics, the world’s leading smartphone-maker, is considering making the switch, putting at risk roughly US$3 billion (S$4 billion) in annual revenue for Google, the report said.
Bing’s threat to Google’s search dominance has grown more credible in recent months, with the addition of OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology to provide human-like responses to user queries.
Samsung shipped 261 million smartphones in 2022, according to IDC data, all running Google’s Android software. The South Korean company has long-established partnerships with both Microsoft and Google, and its devices come preloaded with a library of apps and services from both, such as OneDrive and Google Maps.
Negotiations are still ongoing and Samsung may yet decide to keep Google as its default provider, according to the report.
Google is working on several projects to update and renew its search services to avoid losing ground.
These include adding artificial intelligence (AI) features to its existing offerings, under a project named Magi, which has more than 160 people working on it, the Times reported.
Google is “excited about bringing new AI-powered features to search and will share more details soon”, Google representative Lara Levin said in a statement.
A Google spokesman did not comment on the company’s negotiations with Samsung. A spokesman for Samsung declined to comment.
Between its Samsung deal and one with Apple, which the Times report valued at roughly US$20 billion in annual revenue, the search giant has commanding market share in mobile devices in the United States and much of the rest of the world.
Large language models (LLMs), such as the one underpinning ChatGPT and the chatbot functionality in Microsoft’s Bing, are not new to Google.
The company has been using LLMs to anticipate the intent of users’ queries, Google’s chief business officer said during the tech giant’s fourth-quarter earnings call in February.
Google is also rolling out Bard, its own chatbot search assistant, although it is doing so at a very cautious pace. BLOOMBERG
