Why Did Google Pay Apple $1 Billion?

According to Bloomberg, Google and its parent company, Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) handed over $1 billion to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)

Bloomberg reported that Apple received $1 billion from Google in 2014 as part of a search agreement between the two companies. The report noted that Google gives Apple a percentage of the revenue it generates through Apple devices on Google's search engines.

Bloomberg added that the details were uncovered in a transcript of court proceedings from Oracle Corporation (NYSE: ORCL)'s copyright lawsuit against Google.

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Bloomberg also noted that transcripts from Oracle's lawsuit further revealed that "at one point in time the revenue share was 34 percent" - although it was not clear if this figure represents the amount of revenue that Google keeps for itself or is paid out to Apple.

"The specific financial terms of Google's agreement with Apple are highly sensitive to both Google and Apple," Google said in a January 20 filing, Bloomberg pointed out. "Both Apple and Google have always treated this information as extremely confidential."