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TechApple

How Apple Sucks the Profit Out of Mobile Phones

By
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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By
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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February 14, 2016, 9:38 AM ET
Apple Unveils New Versions Of iPhone 6, Apple TV
Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller speaks about the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus during a Special Event at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium September 9, 2015 in San Francisco, California. Stephen Lam Getty Images

Here’s an interactive bar chart that will give you a sense of how thoroughly Apple dominates the premium end of the mobile phone market, where most of the money is made:

To get a feel for what’s going on, click back and forth between the two views—market share and profit share. With 17.2% of the smartphone market in 2015, Apple captured 91% of the profit. Samsung, with 23.9% of the market, took 14% of the profit.

Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley, who posted this data last week, has been monitoring the situation for several years. His numbers aren’t perfect. He’s comparing smartphone market shares with mobile device operating profits, and only where they are available. (Chinese manufacturers are not required to disclose profits, so they don’t.)

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Sharp-eyed readers will note that Apple and Samsung shared 105% of the profit last year. That’s because so many of their competitors lost money.

For more on Apple, watch:

Apple, however, just keeps clearing the table. It took 91% of what Walkley calls the mobile market’s “value share” in four of the past five quarters. In the fifth, it took 93%.

About the Author
By Philip Elmer-DeWitt
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