[ZeroGravitas]

Your post is all very reasonable, but do you not realise that this quote ...

"And pretty much all Android phone manufacturers are operating on pretty thin margins because of the competition."

... simply isn't true, and the only reason you think that is because it has become an accepted truth in the Apple echo-chamber? (Mostly by intentionally fudging between mobile phone and smartphone numbers depending on whichever makes Apple sound better).

[Tyrannosaurs]

It may be changing but these figures are from Q2 this year and are pretty supportive:

http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/29/apple-captured-two-thirds-o...

Morotola Mobility just posted another loss in the last few days, LG have been losing money for 2 years now with no sign of turning it round. HTC margins are "disappointing" and their share price has dropped considerably in the last few months in large part because of the competition in the market (source: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/htc-profit-up-68-on-demand-...). HTC are making good profits but their margins aren't great.

Samsung are doing well but I'm not seeing anyone else wooping it up but I'd love to see anything that contradicts that (I own no Apple stock and I'm really not that vested one way or the other).

[ZeroGravitas]

From eyeballing that chart it appears he's counting the whole of Apple's profits towards that graph despite the title being "Operating Profit from Mobile Phones".

I don't consider Asymco an independant source, indeed, they are a key part of the Apple echo-chamber that created this myth. (I mean what kind of pseudo- mobile-phone market analyst gets everything about Android, Symbian and Windows Phone wrong? He even fluffed the iPhone numbers last time, so he's not even a one-trick-pony).

[Tyrannosaurs]

> From eyeballing that chart it appears he's counting the whole of Apple's profits towards that graph despite the title being "Operating Profit from Mobile Phones".

I think you need to look closer. While Apple don't break profit data down by product line (I don't believe) he's not that cack handed. If you read through the comments you'd see that he won't use the Samsung telecoms unit figures as these are meaningless in this context so it seems unlikely that he'd use an even more crass approximation for Apple (and this can be confirmed by checking the number he uses against the number Apple publish - they're not the same. If you wish to confirm this remember Apple's Q2 is not calendar Q2).

> I don't consider Asymco an independant source [...]

You may not like his views but he shows data, he shows his working, he answers questions in the comments and on twitter about why he's done something a certain way. Hell, when he messes up public predictions he even rakes over his own errors publicly in more detail than anyone else would.

In the face of this level of openness simply saying you don't consider him an independent source isn't a good argument if you don't show that his data or working is wrong, or provide contrary evidence.

Please show some numbers that show that right now someone other than Samsung is getting anything close to Apple level profit margins on handsets.

[rimantas]

So, provide your numbers.

  > Mostly by intentionally fudging between mobile phone and
  > smartphone numbers depending on whichever makes Apple
  > sound better)

I am especially interested in examples to illustrate this your point. Some dumb phone manufacturer has higher margins than Apple with iPhone and Apple chooses to ignore that?

[matwood]

From all reports it is true. Apple has the highest margins in the industry. People may not like Apple or it's products, but their business savvy cannot be questioned. Locking in certain manufacturing lines for years has made it near impossible for their competitors to compete and still make any money.