Apple Continues to Take More Than Half of Mobile Phone Industry Profits
Despite a sequential drop in iPhone sales in the third calendar quarter of 2011 as customers held out for the iPhone 4S, Apple once again seized over half of the profits generated by leading mobile phone manufacturers during the quarter, according to a new research report by Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley and shared by Forbes. According to the study's estimates, Apple raked in 52% of the overall profits during the quarter, down slightly from 57% in the second calendar quarter but up from 47% in the year-ago quarter that also had the then-new iPhone 4 on the market.
In an epic reversal of fortunes, Mr. Walkley pointed out that in 2007, Nokia had 67% of operating profits while Apple had just 4%. Today, while Apple has 52% of industry profits, Nokia has been relegated its rival’s former position with just 4% of operating profits.
As noted in a report from AllThingsD on the same research note, Walkley predicts that the launch of the iPhone 4S will spur even further growth for Apple, pushing the company to take over 60% of industry profits in the final calendar quarter of 2011.
Walkley is not the only observer to routinely release estimates of mobile phone manufacturer profit shares, as asymco's Horace Dediu performs a similar analysis each quarter. Dediu's numbers have typically come in 5-10 percentage points higher for Apple than Walkley's estimates have, but the trends seen by each analyst are certainly consistent: Aside from some natural ebb and flow due to iPhone release cycles, Apple is continuing to increase its dominant share of mobile phone industry profits despite shipping only a small fraction of total units.
Update: Dediu has just posted his Q3 estimates, pegging Apple at 56% of industry profits.
Popular Stories
Software from an iPhone prototype running an early build of iOS 26 leaked last week, giving us a glimpse at future Apple devices and iOS features. We recapped device codenames in our prior article, and now we have a list of some of the most notable feature flags that were found in the software code.
In some cases, it's obvious what the feature flags are referring to, while some are more...
Last week, details about unreleased Apple devices and future iOS features were shared by Macworld. This week, we learned where the information came from, plus we have more findings from the leak.
As it turns out, an Apple prototype device running an early build of iOS 26 was sold, and the person who bought it shared the software. The OS has a version number of 23A5234w, and the first...
Macworld's Filipe Espósito today revealed a handful of features that Apple is allegedly planning for iOS 26.4, iOS 27, and even iOS 28.
The report said the features are referenced within the code for a leaked internal build of iOS 26 that is not meant to be seen by the public. However, it appears that Espósito and/or his sources managed to gain access to it, providing us with a sneak peek...
Apple is testing iOS 26.3, the next version of iOS 26 that will launch around January. Since iOS 26.3's testing is happening over the holidays, it is a smaller update with fewer features than we've seen in prior betas.
We've rounded up what's new so far, and we'll add to our list with subsequent betas if we come across any other features.
Transfer to Android
Apple is making it simpler...
The first foldable iPhone will feature a series of design and hardware firsts for Apple, according to details shared by the Weibo leaker known as Digital Chat Station.
According to a new post, via machine translation, Apple is developing what the leaker describes as a "wide foldable" device, a term used to refer to a horizontally oriented, book-style foldable with a large internal display....
Apple released the AirPods Max on December 15, 2020, meaning the over-ear headphones launched five years ago today. While the AirPods Max were updated with a USB-C port and new color options last year, followed by support for lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio this year, the headphones lack some of the features that have been introduced for newer generations of the regular AirPods and the ...
Next year's iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max will be equipped with under-screen Face ID, and the front camera will be moved to the top-left corner of the screen, according to a new report from The Information's Wayne Ma and Qianer Liu.
As a result of these changes, the report said the iPhone 18 Pro models will not have a pill-shaped Dynamic Island cutout at the top of the screen....
Apple is preparing to bring support for its Car Keys feature to Toyota vehicles, evidence uncovered by MacRumors suggests.
Toyota introduced its own Digital Key feature as part of the available Remote Connect package several years ago, which allows drivers to use their smartphone as a key to access and drive the vehicle. Now, the company appears to be adding support for Apple Car Keys, with...
