Comment by shepherdjerred 10 hours ago
Apple's ad revenue was 1% of its total in 2024. It was estimated to be 2-3% in 2025.
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2024-q4/FY24_Q4_Consol...
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/10/30/apple-4q-2025-earnings/
Google paying Apple to be the default search engine is not the same as Apple selling $20 billion worth of ads to track you.
Google isn’t just paying Apple $20 billion, it’s based on click throughs on ads in Safari. Apple is very much getting paid based on the ad economy.
But it still isn't Apple doing the tracking or receiving the data about your Google searches. They aren't Apple's ads, they're Google's ads.
The point is that Apple will make money any way that it can, including ads. That's why iOS privacy is worse than its competitors. You can't install an app without telling Apple because if you could, Apple wouldn't be able to monetize you as well. You can't get your location without also telling Apple because if you could, Apple wouldn't be able to build its location services as easily. No such problems on Android.
Their net profit was a little over $100 billion last fiscal year. They get $20 Billion+ in pure profit from Google being their default search engine.
That’s 20% of their profit