Google has been facing a lot of heat regarding its revenue-sharing agreement with various smartphone brands. The charges claim that the deals made by the company limit the competition from rival services. Now, a company employee has agreed that these agreements are actually there to help Android phones fight iOS.

Google paying both Apple and other Android manufacturers as part of its revenue-sharing deal is an interesting take

During the ongoing antitrust trial, Google employee Jamie Rosenberg testified in a company's defense. Based on a report, Rosenberg talked about how the company's revenue-sharing agreements with smartphone brands and carrier partners are there to provide resources to help Android OEMs fight iOS, its biggest competitor.

Google's deals show how the company shares search engine revenue with smartphone brands and carriers. Rosenberg also claimed that these payouts are there to help the partners prompt and maintain Android products and services.

Rosenberg also talked about how Google has changed its approach to mobile networks in the U.S. The search engine is still offering the revenue-sharing deal, but it also offers cash to companies so they can sell more Android devices.

Google also has a revenue-sharing agreement with Samsung, and this spanned over three different deals in 2020. The deals focused on search, services, and marketing. Rosenberg also confirmed that the latter agreement was contingent on the search engine giant getting the position of the default search provider. Again, the purpose of these deals and agreements is to fight iOS. What's more interesting is that besides Google paying carriers and other Android OEMs to sell more devices, the company also pays Apple as part of these revenue-sharing deals, making this whole trial a lot more interesting.

Last but not least, Rosenberg confirmed that the revenue-sharing deals and agreements were not placed in Europe after the EU ruling against Google. It is safe to say that the ongoing antitrust trial against Google is taking interesting turns, and we will have to wait and see what more information comes to light. It has become obvious that these revenue-sharing deals are a problem, we just have to see how they are handled going forward.

News Source: Bloomberg