Apple's Share of Mobile Phone Industry Profits Pushes Toward 60%

[MacRumors]

Asymco yesterday published a pair of charts providing an interesting perspective on mobile phone company performance for the first quarter of 2011, comparing units sold against profitability.




In the first view, the eight largest mobile phone brands are depicted according to share of units sold during the quarter, with Apple (shown in dark orange) checking in at about 7% share among those top vendors. Apple is joined by Research in Motion and HTC in a category of "smartphone-only" vendors that were responsible for 16% of the overall units shipped during the quarter by the top vendors.




But in looking at the profitability of those top eight vendors, a very different view emerges with Apple accounting for about 57% of total profits and Research in Motion and HTC pitching in to give the smartphone-only vendors over 75% of the total profits among the top vendors. In addition, three of the five "diversified" vendors (LG, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson) drop out of the picture entirely in the new view as they were each unable to turn a profit on their mobile phone businesses during the quarter.

Asymco's Horace Dediu argues that the trend of smartphone vendors dominating industry profits will force the "diversified" vendors to refocus on smartphones, further driving the shift away from so-called "dumb phones" and leaving that market to lower-tier vendors.

I've suggested before that I don't see non-smart devices being interesting to vendors in the near term. Each additional dumb phone added to a portfolio will decrease a company's operating margin. The market dynamics are such that I think non-smart phones will disappear entirely from branded portfolios in 3 to 5 years.

Apple's profit share of around 57% for the quarter is up from 50% in Asymco's study for the fourth quarter of 2010 and continues a trend that has seen the company grab an increasingly large portion of industry profits over the past several years.

Article Link: Apple's Share of Mobile Phone Industry Profits Pushes Toward 60%

 

[Mjmar]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Incredible

 

[Chundles]

Forget marketshare, THOSE are the figures that matter. 60% of the money is amazing.

 

[dustinsc]

Just as long as the smart phones get cheaper, I'm happy.

By the way, does that look like an odd way to present information to anyone else? I would have expected a pie chart. It seems like the sort of technique that should be accompanied by logos or pictures of phones or something.

 

[alent1234]

looks like HTC is going to take all of RIM's profit. they are actually pretty close to apple how they operate. they have 2 or 3 basic designs around screen sizes that they make minor changes to and release as a different name under each carrier

 

[*LTD*]

This is why the mobile market of today is nothing like the PC market of the 90s.

The Apple of the 90s couldn't do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, with almost assured success.

Now they can.

Welcome to the Post-PC era, folks. Seriously.

 

[lsvtecjohn3]

Forget marketshare, THOSE are the figures that matter. 60% of the money is amazing.

Somebody who gets it.

 

[dethmaShine]

Lovely - They deserve it

The pioneers of the smartphone industry.

The one who has only 2 phones VS more than a 1000 overall.
The one who never existed as phone maker 4 years back.
The one who is still not available in the US on the big4 carriers.
The one who has only 1 new phone in the catalogue.
The one who makes more money than the rest of the industry combined. -gmfeier

Me Fanboy? Go ahead.

Sent from HTC Mozart 7

 

[tvalleau]

Really? Smart phones make more $$ for the carriers? Who'da thunk?

 

[jb1280]

Just as long as the smart phones get cheaper, I'm happy.

It's not the phone that is inherently expensive, it's the contracts associated with the phones.

 

[gmfeier]

The pioneers of the smartphone industry.

The one who has only 2 phones VS more than a 1000 overall.
The one who never existed as phone maker 4 years back.
The one who is still not available in the US on the big4 carriers.
The one who has only 1 new phone in the catalogue.

Me Fanboy? Go ahead.

Sent from HTC Mozart 7

The one who's making most of the money.

 

[dgree03]

This gets the customer excited how?

 

[Lesser Evets]

This is why the mobile market of today is nothing like the PC market of the 90s.

The Apple of the 90s couldn't do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, with almost assured success.

Now they can.

Welcome to the Post-PC era, folks. Seriously.

Excellent post. Because it is true.
Apple has turned from a trounced icon to a bull amongst the pigs. This ...weird chart... and the data are stunning explanations of why the market is Apple's. Jobs saw the opening for their devices a decade ago and is paving the road at this time.

Post-PC is right. The start of the end was the moment the iPhone emerged, the second death knell was the iPad, one more toll and the PC is lowering into Technosaurus Rex. They'll still be good for pro/gaming activities.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Forget marketshare, THOSE are the figures that matter. 60% of the money is amazing.

to me that tells me that Apple is really ripping off its users by using cheaper parts and selling lower powered phones for huge profit.

Now apple only having 1 basic phone design really helps in savings as they only have 1 line to really deal with but still they sure as hell are not passing on the savings to us. Instead they just try to rip us off more.

 

[fungus]

Forget marketshare, THOSE are the figures that matter. 60% of the money is amazing.

NooooOOOO!!! Gigahertz! open!! Megapixels!!! BIG SCREEEEEN!!!!

 

[scottparker999]

The one who has only 1 new phone in the catalogue.

We can hardly call the iPhone 4 a 'new phone', unless you consider 'being white' a new feature.

 

[dethmaShine]

to me that tells me that Apple is really ripping off its users by using cheaper parts and selling lower powered phones for huge profit.

Now apple only having 1 basic phone design really helps in savings as they only have 1 line to really deal with but still they sure as hell are not passing on the savings to us. Instead they just try to rip us off more.

More trolling? Why not visit the android forums for a while and leave this for the fans?

 

[cvaldes]

to me that tells me that Apple is really ripping off its users by using cheaper parts and selling lower powered phones for huge profit.

Now apple only having 1 basic phone design really helps in savings as they only have 1 line to really deal with but still they sure as hell are not passing on the savings to us. Instead they just try to rip us off more.

Curiously, iPhone users top every single smartphone customer satisfaction survey.

If saving money was so great, why aren't other smartphone owners happier? Same with computer customer satisfaction surveys. Mac owners are the most satisfied of all PC users. Perhaps money really can buy happiness?

Apple isn't "ripping you off." If you don't want to pay their prices, you have many other options. There are plenty of mediocre $99 Android phones and Acer netbooks on store shelves. Go nuts.

 

[gnasher729]

to me that tells me that Apple is really ripping off its users by using cheaper parts and selling lower powered phones for huge profit.

To me it shows that Android phones can only be sold by keeping the price so low compared to the iPhone that there is no profit in it.

Now seriously: I can get a dumb phone with no contract for less than £20. And that's what its worth, and I wish the manufacturer all the luck to make money with it. But if 30 people buy this phone, and one buys an iPhone, two companies have the same revenue, while some statistics shows the first company to have 30 times as many phones sold. While that isn't untrue, it is not meaningful.

 

[batmccoy]

Marketing

I think it's reflective of how the other companies give "free" phones to increase market share. There would be a reduction of profits but increase in "sales". The true profits exist with the carriers.

 

[*LTD*]

This gets the customer excited how?

Strong company on the right financial path = strong products.

That's how.

 

[woodbine]

once again Apple turns an industry on it's head....the great disrupter...

 

[AppleScruff1]

And your pockets are being picked clean.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Curiously, iPhone users top every single smartphone customer satisfaction survey.

If saving money was so great, why aren't other smartphone owners happier? Same with computer customer satisfaction surveys. Mac owners are the most satisfied of all PC users. Perhaps money really can buy happiness?

Apple isn't "ripping you off." If you don't want to pay their prices, you have many other options. There are plenty of mediocre $99 Android phones and Acer netbooks on store shelves. Go nuts.

high satisfaction does not mean that they are not ripping off the users.

Apple uses long cycles of its single phone to make huge profit. By the end of its life it is safe to say they are making a killings off every phone. To bad Apple does not pass on those savings.

Basically to get iOS Apple is forcing you to pay a tax for it. This is a classic example of why there is what is known as the Apple Tax.

To me it shows that Android phones can only be sold by keeping the price so low compared to the iPhone that there is no profit in it.

Minus the fact that they are making tons of profit off of them. Just look at HTC. Android put them on the map and their profit amount as jumped a lot.

 

[thenewperson]

We can hardly call the iPhone 4 a 'new phone', unless you consider 'being white' a new feature.

I don't get how you came to this conclusion.