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.
Thursday November 5, 2026 12:59 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is launching five new products on Friday, November 6, following pre-orders that opened last week, including its first touchscreen MacBook Pro models.
The following new products will be available from today:
iPad mini with OLED display and A20 Pro chip
iMac with M6 chip
14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 chip
14-inch MacBook Pro with OLED touchscreen
16-inch MacBook Pro with OLED...
Friday November 6, 2026 3:27 pm PST by Juli Clover
When the iPhone Duo launched, we shared a list of some of the fun apps developers created for the new form factor. Two weeks out, developers are continuing to come up with fresh ideas, so we thought we'd share some of our favorites.
Games
Marbles Unhinged ($2.99) - Marbles Unhinged is a marble maze designed for the Duo. When you fold it, the floor turns into a ramp. If you stand the top...
Apple plans to merge the iPhone's Action button with the Camera Control starting next year, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital."
In a new post on Weibo, the leaker claimed that a single press of the combined button would open the camera, while a long press would trigger the function assigned to the Action button. They explicitly clarified that the dedicated Action button would ...
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.
