Samsung has been one of the major Android smartphone manufacturers for a long time and has been running an app store of its own, called Bixby, for a long time. Samsung often suggests its users download the application for Bixby’s smartphone, which might not be good news for Google. Therefore, Google wants Samsung to close Bixby and promote Google apps instead. Both Reuters and Bloomberg reported the correspondence between the two companies. Google has been trying to influence Samsung to promote its Play Store and Google Assistant, over Samsung’s Galaxy app store and Bixby assistant.
To make this change, Google is offering Samsung a bit of money. Also, Google is sharing the revenue with phone manufacturers, that is coming from the Play Store and ad revenue. Based on the offer, Samsung is considering closing Bixby from the Galaxy store from their devices, as they will be paid a higher share than before.
Since the launch of Bixby in 2017, the company has been trying to promote it with similar services to offer, like Siri, Google Assistant, etc. However, it has not been as successful as the company expected. Since voice assistants are the primary interface for the search engine, Google is keen to occupy the market and take over any other types of voice assistants available in the market.
Samsung has tried to launch smart speakers with Bixby’s assistant in 2018. However, the product did not taste success and is nowhere to be seen. As per Bloomberg, Samsung is going through losses and lack of revenue due to the pandemic, due to which they are looking for extra revenue that Google agrees to pay if they close Bixby. It seems that both the companies will come to terms and see the end of Bixby from there onwards. If it happens, we can see the upcoming launch changes on the Samsung Galaxy S20 series device.