The market battle between Apple and Nokia and the shift from feature phones to smartphones continues. A new report Thursday crowns the Cupertino, Calif. iPhone maker the world’s largest handset company by revenue. Apple earned $11.9 billion from iPhone sales, compared to Nokia’s $9.4 billion for the first quarter of 2011.
“Apple’s proprietary ecosystem of hardware, software and services has proven wildly popular and hugely profitable,” Neil Mawston, Director of Strategic Analytics said Thursday. Wednesday, Apple said its overall gross profit margin hit 41.4 percent. Handset pricing tells much of the story: Apple’s iPhone wholesales on average at $638 while Nokia’s phones reportedly average $87.
Nokia, however, still is the handset leader in terms of units shipped: 108.5 million versus 18.6 million iPhones for the same three-month period. Nokia announced Thursday its quarterly net income fell 1.4 percent as its share of the smartphone market was cut to 26 percent from 41 percent a year ago. More than three-quarters of handsets Nokia shipped last year were inexpensive mobile phones.
The Espoo, Finland-based firm also reported its market share of overall phones slipped to 29 percent, down from 33 percent.
By comparison, Apple Wednesday announced its second-quarter profits nearly doubled to $5.99 billion on an 83 percent revenue spike to $24.7 billion.
