The competitors apparently have a private agreement that gives Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) a percentage of the revenue Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) generates through iPhone and iPad, an attorney from Oracle said in a lawsuit against Google. The agreement reached the billion-dollar territory in 2014.
The companies never disclosed any agreement between them, although many rumors are circulating of how much Apple was paid for the search engine in the devices. None of the companies have offered statements referring to the agreement at this time.
A 34 % percent was commented by a questioned Google witness in court.
“At one point in time the revenue share was 34 percent,” said the witness in the trial.
It is unclear whether this percentage is the amount revenue kept by Google or paid to Apple.
Google’s lawyers argued that the information should have been sealed and that the percentage should not be released. The lawyer, Robert Van Nest, said that percentage is hypothetical and it is not a publicly known number.
The search engine leader also declared that the specific financial terms of Google’s agreement with Apple are “highly sensitive” to both companies, and they have treated this arrangement as “extremely confidential.”
The trail’s information was obtained due to a transcript, which was not longer found after the news went public. There is no indication that the court ruled on Google’s request to seal it, as reported by Bloomberg.
The new information revealed that rivals can get together to make business, and showed how further was Google willing to go before losing its search tool in every mobile device. Also, it showed how Apple benefits from Google’s advertising-based business model that was criticized by Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
Oracle accused Google of using its Java software without paying for it to develop Android in the lawsuit that revealed the agreement with Apple. Financial information from Google is used by Oracle’s lawyers to prove that the search engine was in a rush to create Android using Java software.
Source: Computer World