“Apple Inc. recorded 92% of the total operating income from the world’s eight top smartphone makers in the first quarter, up from 65% a year earlier, estimates Canaccord Genuity managing director Mike Walkley,” Shira Ovide and Daisuke Wakabayashi report for The Wall Street Journal. “Samsung Electronics Co. took 15%, Canaccord says. Apple and Samsung account for more than 100% of industry profits because other makers broke even or lost money, in Canaccord’s calculations.”
“Events last week highlighted the lopsided financial picture,” Ovide and Wakabayashi report. “Apple is asking suppliers to make a record number of new iPhone models. Meanwhile, Samsung forecast disappointing profits, HTC Corp. reported a quarterly loss, and Microsoft Corp. wrote down 80% of the value of the smartphone business it acquired from Nokia Corp. last year… The results demonstrate the rapidly shifting fortunes in the smartphone business, which Apple transformed with the iPhone in 2007.”
“Apple’s share of profits is remarkable given that it sells less than 20% of smartphones, in terms of unit sales,” Ovide and Wakabayashi report. “Neil Mawston, executive director at market researcher Strategy Analytics, said many Android vendors are stuck between low-cost, high-volume brands such as China’s Xiaomi Corp. and Apple’s premium smartphones.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Bu, bu, but market share! (smirk)
SEE ALSO:
Poor man’s iPhone: Android on the decline – February 26, 2015
Study: iPhone users are smarter and richer than those who settle for Android phones – January 22, 2015
Why Android users can’t have the nicest things – January 5, 2015
iPhone users earn significantly more than those who settle for Android phones – October 8, 2014
Yet more proof that Android is for poor people – June 27, 2014
More proof that Android is for poor people – May 13, 2014
Android users poorer, shorter, unhealthier, less educated, far less charitable than Apple iPhone users – November 13, 2013
IDC data shows two thirds of Android’s 81% smartphone share are cheap junk phones – November 13, 2013
CIRP: Apple iPhone users are younger, richer, and better educated than those who settle for Samsung knockoff phones – August 19, 2013
Newsflash: Apple sells premium products at premium prices to premium customers – October 23, 2012
iPhone users smarter, richer than Android phone users – August 16, 2011
Study: Apple iPhone users richer, younger, more productive than other so-called ‘smartphone’ users – June 12, 2009
Great start to this week.
….. and tomorrow, Apple Pay launches in the UK, so momentum of Apple inc. just continues getting stronger and stronger!!
Haven’t heard a call from any analysts for Apple to make a cheaper iPhone lately.
Just one CNET article arguing for Apple to get rid of the 16GB size. 😛 http://macdailynews.com/2015/07/13/apple-please-kill-the-16gb-iphone/#comments
Make no mistake, market share is very important. But market share is not the same as market dominance. Apple certainly doesn’t need to dominate this market in order to attract best developers. It is enough to have awaking full market share that can generate revenue for those developers. And even with just 20% of devices, it does it better than any single competing platform.
Apple has end to end control over its business and it’s proving too much for Google and it’s disparate hardware vendors to overcome. Apple designs it’s own processors and creates it’s own OS to keep hardware optimized. That makes a pretty tough platform to beat.
There’s certainly no other consumer tech company on the planet that has their own 450 retail outlets to exclusively sell their own products. Apple’s cash reserve is something most companies can only dream about in their most wildest dreams. No other company comes even halfway close to it.
Wall Street scoffs at Apple’s so-called mistakes but I can’t even comprehend why. Sure, things can go wrong, but things can go wrong with any company. Apple is standing well above most companies on the planet and I don’t see how that is a bad thing.
The autocorrect strikes again! It is enough to have a meaningful share…. Where did it get ‘awaking full’…!?
It’s OK to drink in the morning, just don’t drive.
I guess this means there is no such thing as a over saturated market for iPhones. So much for those analysts.
Samsung will stop making phones by the end of 2017. Google will stop Android not long after. American Courts 0, good old American entrepreneurship 10! Locking people up is not the only way to stop people thieving!
I wish you were right but I don’t think it will work out that way. Samsung will keep plugging along with Tizen OS if Android goes away. Some companies have too much pride to give up. They’re claiming even Microsoft isn’t going to completely give up with Windows Phone and their mobile market share is fully in the toilet bowl. As long as companies have some money to throw away, they’ll stay in the game and keep hoping for a miracle rebirth.
Look at BlackBerry. They probably should have shut down a long time ago, but they just won’t give up and I think it’s only useless hope keeping them in business. I may be wrong and it’s only my uninformed opinion. Somebody at the top must be making some money and they’ll just collect their riches until nothing is left.
I don’t think Android OS can fully go away because it also powers tablets and streaming boxes and there’s that somewhat vague Internet of Things that Google is said to be going to dominate in the future.
Maybe not a market as large as smartphones but a nice chunk of those digital display boards you see at restaurants, airports and other places are running Android. Other places that I’ve heard of Android being used: HUD ski goggles, helmets, scuba goggles, portable media players, toy robots and small satellites developed at NASA. That was in 2013.. Android may be in a bunch of other things these days.
Well it’s obvious that Apple is abusing their monopoly in Smartphones.
Giving people a solid, great product that lasts far beyond it’s estimated 2yrs of use, with virus-free easy to load and use apps, a healthy respect for a persons privacy, limited bloatware, and “just works(usually)” software updates that are easy to apply and always enhance and better the physical operation of the hardware and sometimes the user experience(7.0 being a giant turd, thanks Ives), and for a price people are willing to pay is patently absurd.
Obviously the DoJ should step in and force Apple to sell crappy phones that break, can’t be updated without paying GeekSquad, and steal people’s identities for advertising purposes.
Funk em ALL. IP thieving, anti-American whores.