Google offered Android smartphone brands additional revenue to avoid third-party app stores

• New unredacted court documents from the Epic vs Google case reveal a “Premier Device Program” with more perks for smartphone makers.
• Google offered more revenue share to OEMs for not loading third-party app stores in their devices.
• Almost all the popular Android smartphone brands took part in this deal.

Google reportedly paid Android smartphone makers extra incentives to make sure that they do not allow third-party app stores. In early 2019, Google launched a “Premier Device Program” that gave smartphone makers more share of search revenue if they agreed to not load third-party app stores on their devices. This way Google ensured its Play Store monopoly on Android devices.

In addition to not pre-installing third-party app stores, Google’s Premier Device Program also prohibited APK installs of apps, The Verge reported citing new unredacted documents from the Epic vs Google case. This left Android users with only the Google Play Store as the app store marketplace. In the court documents, Epic Games pointed out that this program was not made public earlier as the smartphone makers had to sign a confidentiality agreement preventing them from talking about it without Google’s written approval.

OEMs part of Google’s Premier Device Program

Smartphone makers that were part of the Premier Device Program received a 12% share of Google’s search revenue. This is in addition to the 8% that they already earn from their partner contract with Google. Companies like LG and Motorola were even offered 3-6% of the revenue that came from player spending in the Google Play Store. Motorola and LG turned out to be one the biggest players here with the former committing 98% of its devices, and the latter 95%.

HMD Global is also part of the Premier Device Program with its contract having started in December 2019 and continuing until November 30, 2022. The Finnish company has reportedly committed 100% of its Nokia smartphones to the program. Google’s Premier Device Program included almost all the popular Android OEMs. Oppo, Vivo and OnePlus were also part of the deal with 70% of their devices committed. Companies like Sony and Xiaomi also had their devices committed to this program but only 50% and 40%, respectively.

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