Alphabet shares fall on report Samsung may dump Google Search for Bing

Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) shares fell as much as 4% on Monday following a report South Korea's Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) was considering replacing Google with Microsoft-owned (MSFT.O) Bing as the default search engine on its de-vices.

The report, published by the New York Times over the weekend, underscores the growing challenges Google's $162-billion-a-year search engine business face from Bing - a minor player that has risen in prominence recently after the integration of the artificial intelligence tech behind ChatGPT, reported Reuters.

Google's reaction to the threat was "panic" as the company earns an estimated $3 billion in annual revenue from the Sam-sung contract, the report said, citing internal messages.

Another $20 billion is tied to a similar Apple (AAPL.O) contract that will be up for renewal this year, the report added.

In a response to Reuters, Google said it was working to bring new AI-powered features to Search without commenting on its association with Samsung. The South Korean consumer electronics major did not respond to a request for comment.