‘There’s no price Microsoft could ever offer’: 5 reasons Apple refused to put Bing on Safari

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

• 5 reasons why Apple denied Bing for Safari
• 1. Bing’s ‘inferior’ search quality
• 2. Bing’s ‘horrible’ ad monetization
• 3. Google deal is too good
• 4. Google has better brand recognition
• 5. Google knows its stuff
• About The Author

Google may have lost the antitrust case that deemed it a monopolist, but the search engine giant continues to dominate the market with Google Search. According to Impression Digital, Google’s share of the global search market is 83% compared to Microsoft Bing’s 9.19%.

The aforementioned antitrust ruling, however, outlined in a 286-page document written by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, appears to convey that Apple shares the same sentiment as the average user: Google Search is the preferred tool for information discovery.

In addition to Mehta’s landmark conclusion that Google is a monopolist due to its massive scale, high capital costs, control of key distribution channels, and more, we got some insight into why Apple denied Microsoft’s pitch to install Bing as the default generative search experience (GSE) on Safari.

5 reasons why Apple denied Bing for Safari

The partnership between Apple and Google to use Google Search as Safari’s default search engine dates back to 2002. At the time, however, the agreement was non-exclusive. In other words, Apple could feature other search engines without breaching its contract with Google. In 2007, Google inked a deal to solidify default exclusivity on Safari.

As of this writing, Safari still uses Google. Google pays Apple a lot of money to maintain its presence on Safari. (According to Bloomberg, Google paid Apple $20 billion in 2022.)

Interestingly, and some would say humorously, Microsoft wouldn’t be able to do the same with Bing. The Redmond-based tech giant made numerous attempts to make Bing the default for Safari, but according to the antitrust ruling, Apple’s SVP of Services Eddy Cue said that there’s no price that Microsoft could ever offer to Apple to preload Bing within Safari.

Here are five reasons why Apple denied Bing for Safari:

1. Bing’s ‘inferior’ search quality

Cue said that Bing is “inferior” compared to Google Search. In 2021, Apple conducted a study that measured the relevance of search results on Google and Bing. While Bing outperformed Google Search when it comes to the desktop user interface, Apple’s investigation found that Google had the edge over Bing on all other benchmarks.

2. Bing’s ‘horrible’ ad monetization

Although Microsoft proposed sharing 100% of Bing’s revenue with Apple to secure the default position on Safari, Cue was still concerned that Bing would not be able to deliver enough revenue because it was “horrible” at monetizing advertising.

3. Google deal is too good

In order to get into a partnership with Microsoft, Apple would need to drop its deal with Google. In an email to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Cue said that Apple would “jeopardize its revenue” if it stopped partnering with Google.

Interestingly, Google analyzed how much Microsoft would need to offer Apple to “outbid” Google’s current offerings. As it turns out, the Redmond-based tech giant would have to pay Apple “122% of Bing’s revenue share” just to equal Google’s 33.7% revenue share.

4. Google has better brand recognition

The antitrust ruling claims that Google has excellent brand recognition, giving Apple an incentive to keep Google as Safari’s default GSE.

“It’s a great product for our customers, and we wanted our customers to know that they’re getting the Google search engine,” Cue said. It’s a symbiotic relationship, according to Cue, because Google benefits from Apple telling the world that “Google is the best search engine.” After all, Apple is arguably one of the most trusted brands, and by extension, users expect that Apple would partner with a company that delivers great service, too.

That being said, partnering with Microsoft Bing, which has a low market share, may not be as well received by Apple users.

5. Google knows its stuff

Cue claimed that Google knows how to advertise and it can monetize very well. Apple’s SVP of Services maintained that the Cupertino-based tech giant would only get out of a partnership with Google if Apple viewed it as an entity it no longer wanted to do business with. “It [was a] no brainer to stay with Google as it is as close to a sure thing as can be,” Cue said.

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