asymco's Horace Dediu has released his latest calculations of revenue and profits in the global mobile phone industry, finding that Apple has increased its share of the top vendors' profits to 75%. Samsung followed in second place with 16% of industry profits while no other vendor accounted for more than 4% of profits.
Apple reached 75% of profit share, nearly 40% of revenue share and 9% of units share.
Apple and Samsung combined for about 91% of profits with RIM third at 3.7%, HTC fourth at 3.0% and Nokia last at 1.8% of a $15 billion total for the quarter.
Dediu's analysis covers eight top mobile phone vendors: Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Research in Motion, HTC, LG, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson. While the numbers do not include a few major players such as China's ZTE for which public numbers are not available, his analysis does provide a relatively solid picture of the industry.
According to Dediu's numbers, Apple has held the top spot in profits for 13 quarters in row since overtaking Nokia, and now dominates the industry with its 75% share of profits. Apple succeeds by generating high profitability on high-end devices, enabling it to take the majority of profits while still controlling less than 10% of unit sales.
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Anyway, Amazing that apple takes that much of the profit in this space. Selling similar or often inferior parts for a premium price works well. I hope others don't follow, it will slow down innovation.
You're not selling a device. You're selling User Experience and the ecosystem that's built around it.
Apple sells their smartphones for similar prices to everyone else (they even have cheapie models); they spend more on advertising than other handset makers (judging by the number of ads I see); and they dont get their OS for free! So making that much profit is a real achievement in efficiency and deal-making.
Ya because the 5 or 6 people that jump out of the 1.3 million+ that work there is such a huge percentage. Oh wait, if you actually do any research and read that the percentage is actually lower at Foxconn that the surrounding cities, and considerably lower that the suicide rate in the states just to compare a few. Or the fact any given day there are thousands of people waiting outside the gates hoping to get a job at Foxconn because most don't even have a job and hope they get lucky enough to land a decent job. Ya... let's not mention any of that though.
Then again what fun are forums if ignorance and hyperbol aren't running rampant?
As for the story at hand, I"m glad to see Apple doing well so that others will realize people will pay for quality products and services. I don't want some cheap plastic smartphone with half baked software, I rather enjoy a glass and aluminum phone. I don't mind paying for "style" in my electronics just as I don't mind paying for certain brands of clothes, cars, furniture etc... Apple has proven their marketing, engineering and innovations when done well, pay off. Hopefully others will stop trying to imitate and attempt build an entirely new mouse trap vs just trying to build a better version.
