Samsung Galaxy might use Bing not Google by default for searching.

Considering its 27.1% smartphone market share, Samsung is contemplating a shift to Microsoft’s Bing, featuring ChatGPT technology.

As per a US newspaper, Samsung is exploring changing the default search engine on its Galaxy phones to Microsoft’s Bing, incorporating Alphabet’s Google-powered AI chatbot, ChatGPT.

If Apple Inc., the world’s leading smartphone maker, follows suit, the potential shift from Google to Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine on Samsung Galaxy phones could pose a significant challenge to Google’s current dominance in the global search engine market.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that Google employees were surprised in March upon learning about Samsung’s potential plan to replace Google with Microsoft’s Bing as the default search engine on its devices. Internal messages reviewed by the newspaper indicated that Google’s response to this threat was one of “panic.” The report mentioned that an estimated $3 billion in annual revenue is at stake with the Samsung contract, and an additional $20 billion is at risk with a similar Apple contract set to expire this year. Samsung has used Google as its default search engine since 2010 when the company released its first smartphone featuring the Android mobile operating system.

A possible challenge to the supremacy of the reigning search engine.

As of the previous month, Google commanded 93.2% of the worldwide search engine market, as reported by StatCounter, while Microsoft’s Bing trailed as a distant second with only 2.9%. In the mobile search engine sector, Google maintained a commanding share of 96.6%, with Bing holding a mere 0.5%. Nevertheless, smaller players like Microsoft are gradually chipping away at Google’s market share, leveraging AI technology.

According to a Reuters report last month, Bing’s traffic saw a 15.8% increase after Microsoft integrated ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI using generative AI technology. The report relies on data from the Israeli web analytics firm SimilarWeb Ltd. Concurrently, Google experienced a 1% decline in traffic during the same period.

The potential transition of Samsung to Bing represents a substantial challenge to Google, given that the South Korean tech giant commands a 27.1% share of the global smartphone market as of March, with only Apple’s iPhone ahead at 28.4%.

The protection of Google.

Google’s effort to engage a global audience using its chatbot Bard in February suffered a setback when it provided an inaccurate response to a basic inquiry, resulting in a more than 7% decline in Alphabet’s shares. The New York Times has disclosed that Google is presently working on a fresh search engine, named Magi, incorporating AI technology. However, Bard has not yet been integrated into this new search engine.

The company is expected to launch its new search engine in the United States next month, intending to roll out the service initially to 1 million users, with potential expansion to as many as 30 million by the end of the year.