Android may have the market share, but it’s an entirely different story when it comes to profit share: the latest estimates from Canaccord Genuity indicate that Apple takes 92% of the profits for the entire smartphone industry despite accounting for only 20% of sales.
Or, as the WSJ puts it:
Samsung took a further 15% of the profits – and if you were wondering how that rather odd math works, it’s because most of the other players make a loss, so the two companies make more profit between them than the smartphone industry as whole …
Roughly 1,000 companies make smartphones. Just one reaps nearly all the profits.
Canaccord CEO Mike Walkley said that at the time Apple first entered the smartphone market in 2007, Nokia was taking around two-thirds of the profits (a far cry from today). By 2012, the profit split was around 50:50 between Apple and Samsung. Since then, he said, the “high-end tier has really shifted away from Samsung to Apple.”
Apple’s share of smartphone profits is up from 65% a year ago, though very slightly down on its 93% share in the holiday season. It has been reported that Apple plans to produce a record number of iPhone 6S handsets this year, aiming to top 90M units by the end of the year.
Photo: gsmdome.com
