Profit Shares of 8 Mobile Phone Vendors [Chart]

Horace Dediu of Asymco shows us the profit shares of 8 mobile phone vendors over the past five years.

Of the vendors tracked (public companies who report mobile phone divisional performance), Apple obtained 73% of operating profits, Samsung 26% and HTC 1%.

The "share of profit" picture is potentially misleading because it could imply that the profits available are a constant. They're not. The absolute profits picture below shows how the industry actually expanded available profits by quite a lot. Two years ago the vendors generated profits of $5.3 billion in the first quarter and last quarter they generated $14.4 billion.

Check out Apple's staggering growth in the chart below...

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