Samsung May Sell More Units, But Apple Makes More Profit [Report]

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Still winning.
Winning.
Photo: Cult of Mac

While Apple and Samsung duke it out in Northern California this week, it makes sense to take a little time comparing the two on sales numbers, units shipped, and profit made. And while many folks these days like to bring up the fact that more Samsung devices are sold than iOS devices, those same folks are missing the boat.

According to a report from Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt, via website AllThingsD, Apple’s iOS devices are making its company a ton more profit than Samsung’s devices are. Let’s take a look at the numbers.

The report says that Apple only shipped around 6 percent of the smartphones in the US this past quarter, but brought in about 43 percent of the revenue for the smartphone industry as a whole. That revenue has generated an amazing 77 percent of the entire industry’s operating profits, as well, even as the media and “men on the street” point to the lull in current iPhone sales in the lead up to the release of the highly-anticipated iPhone 5.

Here’s a pretty chart that tells the same story, only with pictures.

That graph on the left? Shows visually how Apple owns almost half the revenues of the smartphone industry as compared to everyone else in it. The chart on the right, of course, shows an ever-increasing pink bar of Apple’s industry earnings before interest and taxes.

So, the next time someone tells you that Android (or Samsung, depending) is selling so many more devices than Apple as a way to convince you that Apple is losing the smartphone wars, you can just point to the pictures above and be done with it. Because, honestly, it’s profit that drives the industry, not just the number of low-end devices sold within it.

Source: All Things D

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