Does Apple Search mean Bye Bye Google?

Apple wants to replace Google Search with its own Apple Search product. What consequences will it have for the advertising industry?

iOS 14 introduces Apple Advertising

A few months ago, with iOS 14, Apple had introduced new privacy changes and new settings. One of the new changes was introducing the Apple Advertising, which sounds strange because the few menu options above have defined a “Tracking” section. But advertising and tracking come together, then why have they split those settings?

As it turns out, Apple has a perfect reason to do this. The latest news confirms what many have predicted that Apple is entering the advertising area. That means that ITP releases and now removing IDFA were well planned.

Can Apple Search replace the Google Search engine?

Google pays Apple every year quite a lot of money (around 14B USD) each year to be the default search engine. So if Apple were about to remove Google Search from iOS, they would lose a lot of money. So they would need to have a plan to replace Google Search with something.

Could Apple build its Search engine?

Yes, they could, but the question is, does it make sense? Even with Apple resources, it would take a lot of time to develop it. And when they would have it, they would need to build an advertising platform similar to Google Ads. 

I think Apple could build its Ads Search platform with fundamental functionalities but building a search engine does not sound like a good idea.

Will Apple buy DuckDuckGo?

Some leaks confirm that Apple would like to buy a privacy orientated search platform DuckDuckGo. The platform is the opposite of Google, it does not personalize search results, and it relies 100% on SEO, and they earn money from the Bing/Yahoo search ads.

Buying DuckDuckGo would be a perfect move for Apple. They would have right away a very good move. 

So, what would it mean for Google?

Google will lose search traffic and revenue from Safari browsers.

Safari now has a 19% market share worldwide, and Google Search has an 80-85% market share. In the next few years, we can see the decline of the Google market share in the direction of 60%. 

But in the US, Safari has a 37% market share, while Google Search share is around 87%, which in the worst-case scenario could mean that Google could decline in the direction of 50%.

Even if Apple Search would not reach such a high market share, it could be enough to dethrone Google from the unprecedented leader’s position. 

Links

• Apple Advertising • quiet introduction of the revolution?
• Browser Market Share Worldwide
• Search Engine Host Market Share Worldwide
• Apple develops an alternative to Google search