Apple’s Dominance Is Utterly Absurd

A report was just released from Canaccord Research and in combination with research from IDC, we get the following utterly absurd results about Apple (AAPL).

In short, Apple’s dominance is utterly absurd.

• Apple accounted for only 13.5% of total smartphones shipped globally.

• Apple takes home 94% of the total smartphone industry profit.

Check out the following chart…

Yes, while Apple sells 1 out of every 8 smartphones, it takes essentially all of the profit from the entire industry with just that market share. Huh? For the record, Microsoft (MSFT) accounts for -1% (negative, i.e a loss).

Here’s an easier way to look at those numbers.

The main stream media doesn’t have the vocabulary to understand breaking technology. Get free news alerts (once a day) from CMLviz here:  Sign Up For (Free) News Alerts.

MORE CONTEXT

There were over 1.2 billion smartphones sold worldwide in 2014 and Apple sold “just” 193 million of those. Yeah, but, Apple has reaped 85% of the profit from all of it in 2014 and now 94% in 2015. Another sign of Apple’s dominance.

And believe it or not, it’s getting bigger, again. Read this below (emphasis added):

“Canaccord says it anticipates continued high-end smartphone market share gains for the larger screen iPhone 6/6S devices as our surveys indicate a greater mix of Android smartphone consumers are switching to the iPhone from Android.”  – Source: Business Insider

Now there is a little problem with these numbers as the research firm points out. Specifically, some of the Chinese OEMs are purposefully losing money in order to grow global smartphone market share which makes the profit pool smaller and therefore over states Apple’s share.

THIS IS REAL

But, before we just dismiss these numbers as useless trivialities, friends, note that Samsung earned 11% of smartphone worldwide profits, and that’s not cherry picking a company. Samsung is in second place and it is a full fledged behemoth at over a $150 billion in market cap.

Apple earns more than 800% (8-fold) Samsung’s profit from the industry. But honestly, all of that back and forth is just conversation. Last year Apple stood at 85% of smartphone worldwide profits and now it’s at 94%. Those are amazing numbers, even though they sound impossible.

Not surprisingly Goldman Sachs just this morning added Apple to its highly coveted “conviction buy list.”

Remember this:

The iPhone is nothing more than a luxury bauble that will appeal to a few gadget freaks. – Matthew Lynn Bloomberg, 2007

That exact ridiculous sentiment is still, today, echoed in today’s media to the point of total absurdity.

Apple (AAPL) is humiliating Wall Street’s analysts and the main stream media because both lack the lexicon to understand what’s actually happening in technology, and that goes for Google (GOOGL), Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT) and dozens of technology and biotechnology companies. But this reality is especially apparent when it comes to Apple and the firm is making a fool out of many analysts and journalists.

Here’s a fact for you that you won’t hear elsewhere. Apple’s spending in research and development (R&D) is up 90% in the last two-years.

Yes, the largest company in the world has nearly doubled its R&D expense in two-years. What’s frightening is that every dollar of profit from the iPhone will soon turn into multiple dollars for Apple across the colossal hub its creating all powered by the iPhone.

Read more about what’s really going on at Apple in this article: Apple Leaves a Bumbling Wall St in the Stone Age.

Thanks for reading.

Read more from Ophir on CMLviz.com.

Twitter:  @OphirGottlieb

Author has a long position in AAPL at the time of publication. Any opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author, and do not in any way represent the views or opinions of any other person or entity.