An Alphabet witness testified in open court on Monday stating under the terms of the two companies' search default agreement, Google pays Apple 36% revenue from Safari.

According to the rules of the two companies' search default agreement, Google pays Apple 36% of its search advertising revenue from Safari, an Alphabet witness stated in open court on Monday during a protracted antitrust struggle between Google and the Department of Justice.

The statistic is one of the best ways to illustrate how profitable Google's search arrangement has been for both Apple and the search engine business. It was previously unknown to the general public. Citing possible anticompetitive impacts, both corporations have battled to restrict the disclosure of the acquisitions' specifics.

It was unexpected that Alphabet's expert witness, University of Chicago economics professor Kevin Murphy, would make this unintentional admission. Murphy's testimony was given as part of the company's defense against accusations made by the Justice Department that it maintains illegal dominance over the search and advertising sectors.

When Murphy disclosed the figure, antitrust partner John Schmidtlein of Williams & Connolly clearly winced, according to Bloomberg News.

The proceedings are primarily focused on the search default agreement. The Apple-Google agreement has been referred to as the "heart" of the case by Judge Amit Mehta. Wall Street also keeps an eye on this figure. In a note to clients, Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi projected that Apple will earn $19 billion in 2023 from the search engine default agreement with Google.