Google Payments to Apple Could Top $1 Billion in 2014

Google’s payments to Apple to remain the default search engine on its iOS operating system could top US$1 billion in 2014. However, that it largely due to increased sales of Apple products, and Google is still thought to be generating a profit on the deal.
Google has a revenue share agreement with Apple that splits the the income 75:25 in Apple’s favour.
According to Morgan Stanley analyst, Scott Devitt Google paid just US$82 million in 2009, while surging sales of Apple products, and the associated increase in traffic sent to Google as a result could push that to above $1 billion in 2014.
Apple has however been reducing its reliance on Google services, with sometimes disasterous effects as with its attempt to develop an in-house maps service. However, Microsoft has been pushing hard to put its Bing search engine into more devices, and may make a big push to replace Google when the next negotiations take place.
Bing is already the default search engine in Nokia devices, as part of their existing partnership, and Bing is also included in newer BlackBerry smartphones.