We’ve been hearing for years now about how Android is destroying iOS in market share. Ironically, though, Apple continues to make more money than all of the Android smartphone makers combined.
The most recent data from IDC shows that for Q3 of 2013 Android made up81 percent of devices shipped. You read that right—four out of every 10 smartphones shipped in Q3 were built on Android. Meanwhile, Apple’s iOS scraped by with a sad and distant second place figure of only 12.9 percent.
Apple executives were probably upset by these figures. They probably had some sleepless nights, and an emergency board meeting to figure out how to turn that ship around and win back some market share. No. Not really.
The reality is that Apple is quite comfortable with the market share data, because the profit numbers are all Apple. Data from Canaccord Genuity shows that during that same period—Q3 of 2013—Apple made more money than all of its competitors combined, taking in 56 percent of the profit in the mobile device market.
The profit data illustrates how Apple’s primary rival is really Samsung—not Android. Samsung made 53 percent of the profit for the quarter. Apple and Samsung combined actually add up to more than 100 percent of all profit for the mobile industry, because all of the other players, like HTC, LG, Motorola, Nokia, and BlackBerry lost money…
Read the full article at Forbes: Android Dominates Market Share, But Apple Makes All The Money.