Google Will Charge Android Phone Makers to Use Its Apps In Europe

Google Will Charge Android Phone Makers to Use Its Apps In Europe. Would you mind buying a phone with no Google apps built in at all? No Google Maps, no Gmail, no YouTube, not even Play Store from where you could download your favorite apps.

Well, soon this could be a reality for European users. As Google has decided to charge phone manufacturers for pre-installing Google services in their devices. The move comes in response to this summer ruling by the European Commission, which hit Google with a record $5 billion antitrust fine for abusing the dominance of its Android mobile operating system and thwarting competitors.

Although Google is in process of appealing the fine in the meanwhile it has already decided to comply with the new licensing scheme by October 29. Since there is no way to get the Play Store in Europe for free after two weeks, this could result in higher smartphone prices if Android phone manufacturers decide to pass the new licensing cost on to their customers.

However, it is not yet clear how much Google is going to charge for the licensing fees.

Also read – 5 Google Maps Features that launched in India first.

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