Samsung considers switching from Google to Bing as the default search engine on its devices,

With a market share of over 80%, Google has dominated the search market for decades.Following a report that South Korean company Samsung Electronics was considering switching Google’s default search engine on its devices to Microsoft-owned Bing, Alphabet shares dropped more than 4% in premarket trading on Monday

The report, which was released by the New York Times over the weekend, highlights the growing threats that Bing, a small player that recently gained notoriety after the integration of the ChatGPT artificial intelligence technology, poses to Google’s $162 billion (roughly Rs. 13,29,477 crore) a year search engine business.

According to the report, which cited internal messages, Google’s response to the threat was “panic” because the company receives an estimated $3 billion (roughly Rs. 24,625 crore) in annual revenue from the Samsung contract.

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A similar Apple contract that is up for renewal this year is linked to an additional $20 billion (roughly Rs. 1,64,172 crore), the report said.

Reuters reached out to Alphabet and Samsung for comment, but neither company responded right away.With a market share of over 80%, Google has long held a dominant position in the search industry. However, Wall Street worries that Google may be losing ground to Microsoft in the rapidly developing AI race.

Parent company Alphabet’s value dropped by $100 billion (roughly Rs. 8,20,860 crore) on February 8 as a result of its new chatbot, Bard, sharing false information in a promotional video and a lacklustre company event.Microsoft outperformed the overall market on Monday, rising 1.9 percent, while the stock was trading lower at $104.50 (roughly Rs. 8,000).Investors are concerned that Google has turned into a lax monopolist in search, and recent developments have served as a wake-up call, according to James Cordwell of Atlantic Equities.

The costs involved in making Google Search more competitive than Bing, which is powered by AI, could also be a problem, according to Cordwell.According to the NYT report, Google is rushing to create a brand-new search engine powered by AI that will provide a more individualised experience than its current service, which is also slated to receive AI features.