John Gruber points out something that I must have seen a zillion times and never noticed: The deep integration of Google Search with the Mac OS X. He adds that this contextual menu command and “the search is performed in Safari, regardless whether it’s your preferred browser or not.” Who knew? I wonder how big that “referral revenue” check for Apple is every month?
To put it unscientifically: Apple gets a big fat whopper of a check. Back in June 2007, Gruber had estimated that Apple was bringing in $25 million a year mostly from the search box in the Safari browser. Nine months later, Apple has been on a tear, selling more computers than ever before and has seen an uptick in its market share. In addition, many millions of iPhones have been sold. Mobile Safari Browser generates ton of search traffic, not to mention boosting the map usage. This tight integration between Apple and Google must result in a big exchange of dollars.
What is your best guess? Scientific answers are preferred but I will settle for unscientific best guesses 🙂
Even if the yearly revenue has say, quadrupled to US$100 million (and this seems to be extremely optimistic), the check is not so fat. During the last fiscal year, Apple’s revenue increased from US$19 billion to US$24 billion. Net income increased to US$3.5 billion from US$1.9 billion in FY2006. US$100 million is inconsequential, you really have to squint to see it in the balance sheet.
Lets not forget Apples push for safari on Windows. We are not just talking about Apple computer sales:
Apple Computer Sales +
iPhone Sales +
Safari downloads for the PC
You combine these plus maps into the mix and it is probably over the $100 million mark, but not too much over. Not really a scientifically derived number, but you get the point.
It definitely is pocket change for Apple on the receiving end and Google on the paying end. Apple gets a nice chunk o change though to basically fund development costs.., and Google continues is massive brand proliferation through Apple much the same way they are doing with Intuit, Sun, Mozilla, and tons of other third party software vendors. I cant tell you how many times I have had them try and sneak their damm toolbar on my machine.
On a side note.., I dont think Mozilla has disclosed their 2007 earnings yet.., but on ’06 they recieved an estimated ~$60 million from Google for the firefox search bar.
I don’t personally think Apple is going to get a lot from Safari on Windows, that would more require people to actually use it. From the people I’ve talked to who’ve unknowingly installed it, maybe 5% of them actually know what it is.
Though I’m sure Safari on Mac gets them a very nice slice of revenue from Google. The team at Apple, I’m sure was able to negotiate a much better deal than Mozilla was for Firefox. And I have a feeling that deal might have been sweetened a bit more for the iPhone. Apple more than likely used the fact that they are supporting pushed yahoo e-mail, as leverage to say, “well we can always just go Yahoo.”
Just my two cents, but I wouldn’t be suprised if they were making over 100 million a year from it.
–Justin
http://www.justinflood.com
quote;
“the search is performed in Safari, regardless whether it’s your preferred browser or not.”
For me, the best part is that, to select the “Default Web Browser” you have to go to “Safari’s Preferences”!
Wouldn’t Apple or Google’s annual report divulge this information?
@ Blaine, the number won’t be large enough for the two companies to disclose it separately. i think when companies are dealing in billions, even tens of millions of dollars seem to be such a trivial amount that they don’t have to break it down.
how much does costthis