“I knew things were bad for smartphone makers that weren’t named Apple or Samsung, but I had no idea they were this bad,” Bill Snyder reports for InfoWorld. “A new report out of Wall Street has a stunning conclusion: Not a single smartphone maker other than the two leaders made any profit during the first three months of the year.”
“The report by analyst T. Michael Walkley of Canaccord Genuity shows that while Apple has lost considerable market share to Samsung, it remains — for the moment, at least — the big kahuna of the bottom line, taking 57 percent of the industry’s profits,” Snyder reports. “Samsung snagged the remaining 43 percent.”
Snyder reports, “The report calls into question the future of competition in the mobile industry. ‘This can’t continue,’ say Chris Hazelton, a mobile analyst at the 451 Group. ‘No one is going to crash and burn right away, but at some point you’d expect to see consolidation.’ Consolidation, by the way, is polite industry speak for companies merging or dropping out of the market altogether. That means BlackBerry, HTC, LG, Nokia, Sony, and Google’s Motorola Mobility unit are all at risk.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “CognativeDisonance” for the heads up.]
What happened to Apple holding 70% profit share? I just don’t believe news anymore.
Check it again after Q413. Looks like the normal cycle to me.
China smartphone growth could probably alter the cycle somewhat. There’s going to be a lot of consumers looking for less expensive smartphones than the present iPhone. A specially-tailored iPhone priced right for the Chinese consumer could make a big difference, though. Right now, Samsung has the big smartphone lead as a foreign company in China. Not sure how large the profits will be. China Mobile’s 700 million subscribers can certainly offer a lot of profits even if the profit margins aren’t that large.
One thing I’m concerned about is if the China iPhone is a hit, is whether Apple can meet the demand quickly enough. I doubt Apple can keep pace with Samsung because Samsung is already pumping up its inventory. Maybe Apple has designed the China iPhone with ease of assembly in mind. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Forgot to mention the ‘bottom of the barrel’ Windows phone.
Perhaps Microsoft can buy up the others and accelerate their disappearance?
ha ha – yes good idea
I believe this is all mobile, whereas Apple owns 70% of smartphone profits, but perhaps this is seasonal as well.
Hey, what do you mean seasonal?
Q412 means the fourth quarter of 2012.
APPLE @ 72%
then
2012 column reads for all of 2012.
APPLE averaged @ 69% for the year.
The next column is Q113 or the first quarter of 2013.
APPLE hits low @ 57%
we still got Q2, Q3 and Q4 to see yet…
The first quarter is always poor, thus the seasonal or quarterly difference.
Ah, just like the good old’ days of Frazier versus Ali. People paid money to watch these matches. Tim Cook needs to put on the gloves and tell Samsung, “I’m gonna punch that ugly off yo’ face, sucker.”
FRAZHUH IS DOWN! FRAZHUH IS DOWN!
I believe it was:
” Down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier”.
Loved Cosell calling those fights.
yep. i am old enough to remember hearing that.
I think Google made a huge misstake an buying Motorola. They felt they had to in order to protect Android but all they bought was a big sack of SEPs and allot if stuff they didn’t want so they had to fire thousands of people. I really hope more player survive, Nokia and BlackBerry. More competition is needed. Not for profit but between platforms.