There’s no money in smartphone selling, unless you are consumer tech titan Apple, which bagged 93pc of all profits in the fourth quarter of 2014.
The figures have been released by financial services company Canaccord Genuity.
Mike Walkley, an analyst with the Canadian business, predicts even further improvements from Apple, with up to 33pc of all smartphone users in 2018 owning one of its devices.
The iPhone 6 will drive this, as more and more people switch over to the newer model, one of the more eye-caching upgrade phones released by Apple this decade. Currently, just 15pc of the current 404m iPhone base has switched to the iPhone 6.
According to Canaccord Genuity, the larger-screened devices will capture more market share from similar Android phones in the near future.
“Longer term,” said Walkley, “we anticipate a gradually moderating rate of growth for the installed base from C’16 through C’18 and estimate 650m iPhone users exiting C’18. We note this base would only represent one-third of an estimated 1.82bn global premium smartphone subscribers anticipated by C’18.”
According to the figures supplied, Samsung is the only other smartphone manufacturer to make any profit in the fourth quarter, with all other major manufacturers running at break even or below.
Canaccord’s workings via Mac Rumours
Obviously, iPhone 6 sales drove Apple profits at the end of last year, but even looking at 2014 as a whole, the company still represented almost four-fifths of all profits.
Apple with loads of cash image via Shutterstock
