Google didn't plan to make much money from the Google Play app store at first, but later "it backfired"

Android has evolved a lot as an operating system, as have the vast number of devices on the market, and we no longer see phones with just default Google apps pre-installed. Modern Android devices are free to come with a plethora of apps pre-installed, and it all depends on the OEM. There are even more apps for carrier phones, but all Android devices revolve around one important element, and that's the PlayStore. However, it seems that the search engine giant never really intended to make a lot of money from it.

The Google Play Store was once called Android Market, and Eric Chu, head of Android developer ecosystem, once said that "Google will not operate Android Market as a profit center" and the company will "charge a small fee to cover the cost of processing and billing." At the same time, at the time, the search engine giant's own revenue share was indeed 5%, 25% for operators, and 30% for developers. Things have changed now.

The new information came to light during the Epic Games v. Alphabet lawsuit. Of course, Google is no longer worried about making money from the Play Store. In fact, as early as 2020, the operating profit margin of this digital store reached 65%, and the operating profit in the first half of 2020 reached US$4.4 billion, and this number was even higher than in 2019, which shows that the profits of this search engine tycoon are constantly increasing.