April 20, 2024

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[THE INVESTOR] US tech giant Apple captured nearly 80 percent share of operating profits in the smartphone market in 2016, beating its rivals on the Android side, including Samsung Electronics, according to market research firm Strategy Analytics on March 8.

Apple earned US$44.99 billion operating profit last year, which accounts for 79.2 percent of the entire US$53.77-billion profits generated in the global smartphone industry. 

By unit shipments, Apple’s iPhones have less than 20 percent market share while smartphones running on Google’s Android operating system enjoy a majority market share of more than 80 percent.

Apple’s longtime rival Samsung took 14.6 percent of profits for the entire industry at US$8.31 billion.

Chinese smartphone manufacturers Huawei, OPPO, and Vivo, which rank third, fourth, and fifth, respectively, by sales in the global smartphone market, gained a combined share of 3.3 percent.

“Apple will be able to widen the gap with other phone makers by releasing a new premium iPhone this year,” an industry official said.

The base model of the new iPhone, anticipated to be unveiled in the latter half, will likely come with a price tag of more than US$1,000.

In terms of profit margin, Apple also outpaced its rivals. Apple’s profit margin stood at 32.4 percent while that of Samsung came in at 11.6 percent.

The profit margin of the three Chinese firms, which put more focus on budget smartphones, stood at around 5 percent.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)