Report says Samsung has decided not to replace Google with Microsoft's Bing in its phones

The Bing logo on a blue background

In April, The New York Times reported that Samsung was considering replacing Google Search as the default search engine for its Galaxy smartphones for Microsoft's Bing. Now it appears that the Korean giant has pressed the "pause" button on such a move.

The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, claims that Samsung has now suspended an internal review that was considering switching from Google to Bing for its smartphones.

When the original NYT story hit, it stated that Samsung was impressed with Microsoft's efforts into adding generative AI into its search program via Bing Chat. As a result of that report, Google's stock price went down by 2.5 percent on that day.

However, it was pointed out after that report was published that Google has what it calls the Mobile Application Distribution Agreement (MADA). It basically stated that any smartphone company that wanted the Google Play Store installed must also set Google Search as the default search engine on their phones.

Having said that, since Samsung is the largest worldwide Android-based smartphone company by a pretty fair margin, it's more than possible that it has a special agreement with Google that is not available for other Android smartphone companies. For example, Samsung has its own Galaxy Store for downloading apps on its smartphones which is something other Android phones with the Google Play Store don't have.

In any case, it would appear that Samsung is sticking to what it knows and will keep Google Search as the default search engine for its smartphones. Microsoft and its Bing search engine will have to find their way into the mobile space in other ways. It's already doing so by adding Bing Chat services to its Bing mobile app, and it's also adding AI chat to other mobile app services like its SwiftKey keyboard, its Edge browser, and its Skype messaging service.

There's are still rumors that Bing could replace Google Search as the default in the Firefox browser, but so far there's been no official indication that might happen.