Asymco's Horace Dediu has released his data on operating profits among the eight top mobile phone vendors for the first quarter of 2012, finding that Apple and Samsung together now hold 99% of the profits with Apple representing the lion's share at 73%. Apple's share was down slightly from 75% in the previous quarter, but Samsung boosted its share from 16% to 26% to shut out nearly all other vendors.
Among the other six vendors, only HTC managed to eke out a profit, taking 1% of the total industry profits. Research in Motion, LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and Nokia each failed to turn a profit on their handset businesses.
The rise of Apple and Samsung at the expense of all of the other major vendors comes as the mobile phone market continues to expand and more expensive smartphones make up an increasing percentage of overall mobile phone sales. Consequently, Apple and Samsung share growth is coming even as the total pool of profits is surging. Over the past two years, profits taken by these top eight vendors has risen from $5.3 billion to $14.4 billion, driven in large part by carrier subsidies worth hundreds of dollars on each of the growing number of smartphones sold.
iPadOS 26 allows iPads to function much more like Macs, with a new app windowing system, a swipe-down menu bar at the top of the screen, and more. However, Apple has stopped short of allowing iPads to run macOS, and it has now explained why.
In an interview this week with Swiss tech journalist Rafael Zeier, Apple's software engineering chief Craig Federighi said that iPadOS 26's new Mac-like ...
Thursday June 12, 2025 8:58 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup.
If you skipped the iPhone...
Alongside WWDC this week, Logitech announced notable new accessories for the iPad and Apple Vision Pro.
The Logitech Muse is a spatially-tracked stylus developed for use with the Apple Vision Pro. Introduced during the WWDC 2025 keynote address, Muse is intended to support the next generation of spatial computing workflows enabled by visionOS 26. The device incorporates six degrees of...
Thursday June 12, 2025 4:53 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
With iOS 26, Apple has introduced some major changes to the iPhone experience, headlined by the new Liquid Glass redesign that's available across all compatible devices. However, several of the update's features are exclusive to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models, since they rely on Apple Intelligence.
The following features are powered by on-device large language models and machine...
Apple this week announced that iPhone users will soon be able to watch videos right on the CarPlay screen in supported vehicles.
iPhone users will be able to wirelessly stream videos to the CarPlay screen using AirPlay, according to Apple. For safety reasons, video playback will only be available when the vehicle is parked, to prevent distracted driving. The connected iPhone will be able to...
Wednesday June 11, 2025 4:22 pm PDT by Juli Clover
iOS 26 features a whole new design material that Apple calls Liquid Glass, with a focus on transparency that lets the content on your display shine through the controls. If you're not a fan of the look, or are having trouble with readability, there is a step that you can take to make things more opaque without entirely losing out on the new look.
Apple has multiple Accessibility options that ...
Thursday June 12, 2025 10:14 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple today added Mac Studio models with M4 Max and M3 Ultra chips to its online certified refurbished store in the United States, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and many European countries, for the first time since they were released in March.
As usual for refurbished Macs, prices are discounted by approximately 15% compared to the equivalent new models on Apple's online store. Note that Apple's ...
Apple today provided developers with a revised version of the first iOS 26 beta for testing purposes. The update is only available for the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 models, so if you're running iOS 26 on an iPhone 14 or earlier, you won't see the revised beta.
Registered developers can download the new beta software through the Settings app on each device.
The revised beta addresses an...
At today's WWDC 2025 keynote event, Apple unveiled a new design that will inform the next decade of iOS, iPadOS, and macOS development, so needless to say, it was a busy day. Apple also unveiled a ton of new features for the iPhone, an overhauled Spotlight interface for the Mac, and a ton of updates that make the iPad more like a Mac than ever before.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel ...
As much as I don't like the current Nokia or Motorola phones, there needs to be more competition. Having Apple and Samsung covering most of the market between them is not a good thing for anyone.
Somewhere in 2010, we heard Apple has more than half of the industry profits (50%). Last year, we heard that Apple had approximately two-thirds of the industry profits(66%).
Now we hear that Apple holds approximately three-fourths of the industry profits, i.e. 75%.
It's truly incredible how a company that dominated so much of a market for a relatively long time, such as Nokia and RIM, can fall so rapidly into the abyss in a few years only. Likewise, it's amazing how the iPhone has risen to glory so fast. It's an amazing cel. phone, after all.
When you have a 30%-45% margin profits are easy to make.
Some may be thinking that achieving 30-45% margins on products that are better made and more functional than the competition yet still cost about the same is “easy.”
Tim Cook would disagree :) So would all those other companies.
As much as I don't like the current Nokia or Motorola phones, there needs to be more competition. Having Apple and Samsung covering most of the market between them is not a good thing for anyone.
Well then the nokias and motos of the world should try building something that someone wants to buy.
