Samsung Reportedly Sticking With Google As Search Engine Of Choice For Its Phones
Microsoft has aggressively attacked Google's browser and search market share, but the latter is still winning the war. It's scored a victory in perhaps the biggest battle yet, with The Wall Street Journal reporting that Samsung is sticking it out with Google as the default search provider on its smartphones and tablets. The company was reportedly exploring a change to Bing, the attractiveness of which has soared in recent months thanks to new AI-powered search and chat features. There were murmurings Samsung would eventually rock the boat as a result.
In almost all other areas, Samsung and Microsoft are practically joined at the hip. Microsoft is one of the Korean smartphone maker's biggest enterprise partners. The company notably pushes Microsoft's various productivity apps to the forefront of its phones and tablets, and the two work closely on Windows laptops. Samsung was also key in helping develop Phone Link, which allows you to manage your Android devices from Windows PCs.
While hitching its wagon to Bing would have made sense in some regards — especially given the search engine's rising popularity thanks to its ChatGPT-based Bing Chat — now sources familiar with Samsung's plans have told The Wall Street Journal that the company has stopped considering such a switch for now.
Google Search gets a stay of execution
According to those unnamed sources, Samsung was originally considering a switch to Bing because it wanted to "diversify its smartphone software." Samsung smartphones use Google's Android operating system and come with Google's suite of mobile apps pre-installed, including Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Docs, resulting in a heavy reliance on Google for its smartphone software. Switching to Bing as the default search engine would have reduced Samsung's reliance on Google, though likely in a negligible way given Google's omnipresence within the Android ecosystem.
WSJ's report also indicates that Samsung didn't think switching to Bing as the default search provider would have caused a significant rift with Google, as the switch would have only impacted Samsung's in-house browser, which comes pre-installed on its devices. According to WSJ's sources, most users don't opt for Samsung's browser and instead choose a different option, so switching to Bing probably wouldn't have caused a big splash in the end.
In any case, it seems Samsung is no longer considering the switch, though that doesn't mean the option is off the table forever. WSJ's sources suggest that Samsung may still be open to jumping on the Bing bandwagon in the future, but for now, it seems Google Search won't be going anywhere on Samsung's devices.