Analyst: Google faces ‘significant’ blow if Apple dumps them from Safari

“Google, which has seen its share of the U.S. search market already decline after being replaced in the Firefox web browser three months ago, is facing an even bigger threat should Apple also oust it from the iconic computer maker’s widely used Safari browser,” Jenn Van Grove reports for TheStreet. “‘What we’ve seen with Firefox on the desktop … has really caused a shift that hasn’t happened before,’ StatCounter founder Aodhan Cullen said. ‘This is the first time we’ve seen something that has actually moved the needle, and given Yahoo! share and taken share away from Google.’ This suggests an even bigger loss to Google — ‘significant’ to use Cullen’s word — if Apple decides not to renew its search contract with Google, which is said to expire early this year.”

“‘Apple and Google and clearly rival companies in several areas, and I think it’s entirely possible that… Safari could replace Google in the very near-term feature as the default search engine,’ Altimeter Group analyst Rebecca Lieb said,” Van Grove reports. “A Nomura analyst estimated in a January research note that Google is poised to collect $8.8 billion in gross mobile search revenue from Apple this year. Both Yahoo! and Microsoft are actively pitching Apple to take over the coveted contract, according to news outlet The Information.”

“And Yahoo! chief executive Marissa Mayer candidly admitted to shareholders that she really wants the deal,” Van Grove reports. “‘The Safari platform is basically one of the premiere search engines in the world, if not the premiere search engine in the world. We are definitely in the search distribution business … and anyone who is in that business needs to be interested in the Safari deal,’ Mayer said during Yahoo!’s December quarter earnings conference call with investors. ‘The Safari users are among the most engaged and lucrative users in the world and it’s something that we would really like to be able to provide.'”

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MacDailyNews Take: Push that big red button Steve left you, Tim!

Google’s going to rue the day they got greedy by deciding to try to work against Apple instead of with them. – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2010

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