The move is to comply with an EU antitrust order and comes three months after the European Commission handed it a landmark 4.34 billion euro ($5 billion) fine for using its popular Android mobile operating system to hinder rivals.

The company said the licensing fees will offset revenue lost because of its compliance efforts.

Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s senior vice president for platforms and ecosystem wrote in his bog: "Since the pre-installation of Google Search and Chrome together with our other apps helped us fund the development and free distribution of Android, we will introduce a new paid licensing agreement for smartphones and tablets shipped into the EEA."

Lockheimer said that the device manufacturers will be able to license the Google mobile application suite separately from the Google Search App or the Chrome browser.

“Since the pre-installation of Google Search and Chrome together with our other apps helped us fund the development and free distribution of Android, we will introduce a new paid licensing agreement for smartphones and tablets shipped into the EEA. Android will remain free and open source. Third, we will offer separate licenses to the Google Search app and to Chrome.”

Google will offer new commercial agreements to partners for the non-exclusive pre-installation and placement of Google Search and Chrome.

“As before, competing apps may be pre-installed alongside ours. These new licensing options will come into effect on October 29, 2018, for all new smartphones and tablets launched in the EEA”, Lockheimer added.