Apple, Samsung and the great pretenders
Apple and Samsung continue their unrivaled dominance of the mobile phone market, accounting for 103% of industry profits during 2012.
The warring companies, forever at each other's throats during the year, head a market which has seen operating losses by BlackBerry, Nokia and Motorola.
While both LG and HTC were in the black, Apple claimed 69% of the profits, with Samsung bagging 34%.
Yet as the both companies rejoice on different sides of the world, competitors BlackBerry and Motorola suffered -1% losses, as Nokia hit a -2% decline.
“We believe Apple’s value share of the handset market is even higher than our estimates," says Michael Walkley, analyst, Canaccord Genuity.
"Considering Apple’s dominant market share of the tablet market, as some Android OEMs such as Samsung and HTC include tablet sales in reported smartphone sales and profits.
"Given the current competitive dynamics, we believe Apple and Samsung will maintain dominant value share during Q1/13 with share gains for Samsung versus Apple expected in Q1/13.”
Canaccord fully expects Apple and Samsung to continue their dominance of the industry at least for the foreseeable future but the problems for the remaining competitors circle around one defining question - can they compete with two giants of the industry?
