Samsung and Google partner to make Google Play Music the default music service on new Samsung phones and tablets worldwide, starting with Galaxy S8 and S8+
Samsung and Google today announced a new partnership that will make Google Play Music the default music player and music service including …
Context & Ripple Effects
This deal slots into a running pattern of Samsung trading default app placement on its phones for Google services: Play Music here on the Galaxy S8 launch, Google Messages as the US default from the Galaxy S22 onward in 2022. For Google, the prize is worldwide distribution on the largest Android vendor's flagships at the moment mobile music streaming subscriptions were the growth market.
The arrangement proved short-lived as a product story: within two years Google itself announced that [[a:946264|YouTube Music would replace Google Play Music as the preinstalled service on new Android devices]], and Samsung hedged by building Spotify directly into its devices and Bixby in 2018.
First-order effects
- Every Galaxy S8 and S8+ buyer worldwide gets Google Play Music set as the default player and service out of the box, giving Google a guaranteed top-of-funnel on Samsung's flagship volume.
Second-order effects
- Spotify and Apple Music lose the zero-choice default slot on Samsung hardware, and Spotify's answer came fast: the 2018 Samsung-Spotify partnership that embedded Spotify into Samsung phones and Bixby rather than competing for the default alone.
Third-order effects
- Default placement is revealed as a revocable rental, not a moat — Google killed the very service it had paid to promote when it consolidated on YouTube Music, so the durable structure is the ongoing auction of Samsung's default slots among streaming providers.
The trend: Android OEM default slots are becoming a recurring, churn-prone distribution battleground for streaming services, with each flagship generation re-awarding placement as the underlying services themselves get replaced or bundled.