Telefonica, one of the world’s largest carriers with O2 and Movistar networks serving the UK, Spain, Germany and Latin America, will be making every new compatible Android phone it sells, including Samsung phones. Start preinstalling Epic Games Store on your phone.
Telefonica and Epic say this is part of a “long-term partnership” to bring the store and the blockbuster Fortnite to the carrier’s “millions” of devices. This is the first time Epic Games Store will be pre-installed on a consumer phone, and is the next big step in realizing Epic’s dream of challenging Google’s app store monopoly and increasing its share of revenue. There is a possibility.
Last December, a federal jury unanimously sided with Epic Games in Epic v. Google, finding that Google had turned the Android app store and Google Play Billing service into an illegal monopoly. Epic originally filed the lawsuit in 2020, alleging that Google “blocked” or “bribed” cell phone manufacturers and carriers to prevent games like Fortnite and alternative app stores from being pre-installed on their phones. He claimed to have given it to him.
But now, about a month after Judge James Donato barred Google from further blocks or possible bribes, one of the world’s largest carriers has begun pre-installing them and is targeting rivals. We plan to add the entire game store (with the possibility of handling non-game apps in the future) to Google’s own.
Judge Donato’s order does not make this a new possibility, as Epic spokesperson Natalie Muñoz confirmed to The Verge that Telefonica was not one of the carriers that Google “bribed.”
In fact, Telefonica has partnered with Epic in the past. In 2020, Movistar customers in Spain were able to add their Fortnite purchases to their phone bill. Court documents from the same year revealed that Telefonica could expect to earn 5 percent of revenue from Fortnite players as a result. Similar deals have been proposed for Verizon and Hutchison (Three, Wind Tre), but it’s unclear whether they will follow suit.
I wonder what Samsung thinks about Telefónica pre-installing the Epic Game Store on its phones. In September of this year, Epic also filed a lawsuit against Samsung.
