While Apple doesn’t ship more phones than anyone else, a new report today shows that it continues to take home most of the global smartphone profits even before the launch of the iPhone 13. In the second quarter of the year, iPhones accounted for only 13% of global shipments, but it’s a very different story when it comes to revenue and profit.
Apple isn’t the number one company that ships the most devices in the world, that’s Samsung, but it’s the one company that profits the most from smartphones. Counterpoint Research says that iPhones accounted for 40% of global smartphone revenue, and 75% of profits went to Apple.
Counterpoint says “Apple has been the biggest profit and revenue generator in the handset business. In Q2 2021, it captured 75 percent of the overall handset market operating profit and 40 percent of the revenue despite contributing a relatively moderate 13 percent to global handset shipments.”
The research firm attributed the steady revenue stream and a big uptick in its shipment share to the success of the iPhone 13 models. “While this performance shows the power of the Apple brand, it is still lower than the peak of Q4 2020 when its revenue share reached a staggering 50 percent, up from 28 percent in Q3 2020, and its profit share reached an unprecedented 86 percent, up from 51 percent in the previous quarter. While there was a significant jump in its shipment share, from 9 percent to 17 percent in the same period, the extent of its revenue share reflects the success of its first 5G-enabled iPhone series” the research firm added.
Samsung is the largest smartphone vendor in terms of actual shipments, but it failed to reach the second-highest revenue share in Q4 2019 and Q2 2020 when Huawei was still in the fight. However, Samsung has steadily been on the number two spot in the past several quarters, and it’s just behind Apple. The report also highlights that Apple is a premium smartphone manufacturer, and even companies such as Xiaomi ship more devices, but of course, it has widely different profit margins and devices at different prices.
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