Google to pay Apple $3 billion to remain default search engine on the iPhone

**Google** will pay Apple nearly $3 billion this year to remain as the default search engine on **iOS** devices, US-based research and brokerage firm Bernstein has said. According to a note to investors on Monday, Google has increased the amount this — from $1 billion three years ago to $3 billion this year and Google’s licensing fees make up a large bulk of Apple’s services business. “Court documents indicate that Google paid **Apple** $1B in 2014, and we estimate that total Google payments to Apple in FY 17 may approach $3B,” CNBC quoted analyst A.M. Sacconaghi Jr. as saying. “Given that Google payments are nearly all profit for Apple, Google alone may account for five per cent of Apple’s total operating profits this year, and may account for 25 per cent of total company OP growth over the last two years,” he added. Apple’s iOS devices contribute about 50 per cent to Google’s mobile search revenue, Sacconaghi noted. This comes a day after Google launched voice search support for eight additional languages spoken in India, allowing people to use their voice to dictate queries both in **Gboard** on Android and in Search through the Google App. The languages are Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. In order to perform a voice-based search, users will need to set their language in the “Voice” settings menu in Google app, the company said in a statement. With inputs from IANS