Apple reported the largest profit ever recorded by a public company in the holiday quarter, mostly driven by sales of 74 million iPhones with an average selling price of $687. According to Cannacord, this meant Apple captured 93% of handset smartphone profits. Perhaps more staggering is that it claims Apple dominated on similar levels across the entire of 2014 — with 79% of mobile device profits.
The analyst expects continued growth for the iPhone for the next few users, with an estimated 650 million iPhone users by the end of 2018.
On financials, Apple is way out in front of its competition. Unsurprisingly, Samsung is Apple’s closest rival although it is still far off in terms profitability. The same report says Samsung shipments account for 9% of total profits in the fourth quarter, meaning Apple and Samsung combined makeup 102% of the total.
Like some previous quarters, Apple and Samsung were the only companies to make non-negative profits in the period. Cannacord says HTC, LG, Sony, Lenovo and BlackBerry broke even and Microsoft phone sales (Nokia) actually made a relative loss of 2%.
Despite unparalleled operating margins, the iPhone continues to become ever more mainstream, as this chart by Charles Arthur highlights.
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