An interesting series of charts from Asymco reveals that, despite a worldwide mobile phone unit market share of only 4%, Apple accounted for approximately half of the industry's profits for the fourth quarter of 2010.
4Q10 unit-based market share for mobile phone vendors
With only a small unit market share, Apple has managed to achieve its remarkable profits by focusing on the high-priced and rapidly-growing smartphone market while doing so at significant profit margins. That 4% unit share consequently translates to over 20% of industry revenue and just over 50% of industry profits.
4Q10 profit share for top eight public mobile phone vendors
Asymco's study based its calculations of revenue and profit shares on data compiled from reports issued by the top eight publicly-traded mobile phone manufacturers: Apple, HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Research in Motion, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson. While included in the "Other" category for unit market share, companies such as Chinese manufacturer ZTE, which edged out Apple for fourth place in the quarterly unit sales rankings, are not included in the revenue and profit data as such information is not publicly available.
The results demonstrate the continuation of a trend that had seen Apple's share of mobile phone industry profits rise from 20% in 2008 to 39% for the first half of 2010. Asymco published a similar estimate of 50% profit share for Apple in the third quarter of 2010.
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025:
Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Wednesday March 26, 2025 4:53 pm PDT by Juli Clover
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Design
There have been no rumors of a design update for the M5 MacBook Pro models that are coming this...
Wednesday March 26, 2025 12:19 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is going all out with promotions for the popular Severance Apple TV+ show today, and as of right now, you'll find a new "Lumon Terminal Pro" listed on Apple's Mac site.
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Specifically, Meta has redesigned the...
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Apple's website says some iOS 18.4 features will be released in "early April," so the update should be out as early as Tuesday, April 1.
Apple this week seeded the iOS 18.4 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, barring the discovery of any...
Wednesday March 26, 2025 4:06 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Update 7:25 pm: Based on comments from our forums, it appears the original Weibo post may have been mistranslated and "8K" actually refers to the high price of the device rather than 8K video recording capabilities. The iPhone 16 Pro currently starts at 7,999 yuan in China.
Our original article follows below.
Apple's forthcoming iPhone 17 Pro models are capable of shooting 8K video, up...
Thursday March 27, 2025 4:21 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Last week, we covered a report claiming that Apple's book-style foldable iPhone (or "iPhone Fold," as we are provisionally calling it here) will use liquid metal hinges to improve durability and help minimize screen creasing. Today, a Chinese leaker provided more details on the properties of this hinge material that help to clarify why Apple chose it for its first foldable device.
According...
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To use the feature on iOS 18.4, open Control Center and tap on the plus sign in the top-left...
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According to Gurman, the images that are "floating around" are based on "very old builds" or "vague descriptions," and are lacking key features. Gurman says that we can "expect more from Apple in June."
Gurman made the same comment ...
