The mobile race has come down to two companies at this point; both Apple and Samsung account for 90 percent of all smarphone market profits (sales) during the first quarter of 2012, according to research conducted by ABI Research. Apple also took in 35 percent of all shipments, while Samsung took in a whopping 43 percent of smartphone shipments. That said, “Samsung and Apple captured 55% of global smartphone shipments in 1Q’2012 and over 90% of the market’s profits.”
Things aren’t looking so good for companies not named Samsung or Apple:
Of the top ten smartphone OEMs, only Samsung and Sony experienced sequential growth in shipments over 4Q’2011. Nokia witnessed a 40% sequential decline in shipments and may soon be passed by ailing RIM in shipments despite the BlackBerry maker’s 20% sequential decline in shipments.
Google is absent from the list because they don’t make smartphones — they make operating systems (Android). Taking that into account for a moment illustrates just how important it may be for Google to develop their own handset in the future, and it explains why rumors of a Facebook phone persist around the techsphere. There’s a lot to gain by entering into the mobile smartphone arena, especially if either Google, or Facebook, could build a phone people would prefer to own. In Google’s case, they may be able to cut a large chunk of Samsung’s slice of the pie if they move on the idea and start developing an Android experience from beginning to end.
Everyone else? Well, let’s just say they’re lost in the desert, and they’re only entering year five of a forty year journey.
