NEW YORK: While Google’s Android holds the lion’s share of the global market, being used in over 80% of all smartphones shipped worldwide, latest earnings show that Apple is the one making all the profits.
Today Strategy Analytics said that Apple raked in nearly $18.8 billion in profits, accounting for 89% of all smartphone profits in quarter four. In contrast, Android took only 11%, or $2.4 billion.
But it was bad news for other platforms such as Microsoft, Blackberry and Firefox who seemingly made no profit at all.
Overall, smartphone profits were up 31.4% compared to the same quarter a year ago.
As far as device manufacturers go among Android, Samsung, once the market leader, has started facing increasing competition.
Neil Mawson, research director for Strategy Analytics, says the “three big profit drivers” for Android are Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi.
“Samsung is the Android giant that delivers most of Android’s smartphone profits worldwide,” adding that the company accounts for over half of all Android smartphone profits globally in Q4 2014.
This could mean that there was a possibility that Samsung’s share may have shrunk from 2013 when it accounted for 95% of Android profits.
Apple may have lagged behind in critical mass in market share in developing markets, but it has strong showing in places such as China. The Cupertino giant reported sales of $16 billion in the country in Q4.
