Here’s What Apple and Google Are Fighting Over: Search Goes Mobile by 2016

The tech press provides constant updates on the Apple versus Google mobile war, using statistics about unit sales, activation numbers, app downloads, etc. But it’s always good to remember what the war is about. Here’s a helpful reminder, via a Bernstein research note.

By 2016, analyst Carlos Kirjner predicts, the majority of Web search queries will come from mobile devices. But if you added tablet searches, you’d reach the tipping point that much earlier. And it will get there much sooner in the U.S., anyway, because smartphone penetration is much higher here than other parts of the world. At some point, Kirjner suggests, Apple may decide to jettison Google for a competitor like, say, Microsoft. And that could cause real problems for Larry Page and company. But those problems would be much, much worse if Google hadn’t created an iPhone competitor in the first place.