[ZeroGravitas]

Do you have figures to share? You seem confident, yet I'm equally confident that their profits from smartphones are large and growing quickly.

It's seems unlikely that they would be doing so differently from HTC and ZTE, much smaller players who are doing very well.

I don't know of any comprehensive numbers on the market that I'd trust, but as a snapshot Apple reported $7.3 Billion profit in July (for phones, ipods, ipads + compters etc.) up 80% from last year, while Samsung just announced $2.3 Billion just from smartphones, a yearly increase of over 100%. (This doesn't seem to include money from selling components to other smartphone makers, such as Apple).

[coob]

Asymco smartphone profit league table updated for Q3:

http://pic.twitter.com/rIO0siLf

Edit: See also: http://www.asymco.com/hire-me/vendor-bubbles/

[ZeroGravitas]

Your graph appears to show Samsung overtaking RIM and Nokia in profits and moving into second place as its smartphone marketshare grows to be the largest (it overtook them both in marketshare during the last year).

Do you think that supports your point or mine? As a reminder my point was that "I'm equally confident that their profits from smartphones are large and growing quickly".

(The bubbles' seem to paint the same picture in a more dynamic way, with Apple, Samsung and HTC rising strongly over the last year though it ends at June.)

I'm a bit confused about Apple's profit being "6" according to the bubble thing in June and it being $7.5 Billion for their entire product line the next quarter. I guess that's not just smartphones then (edit: yep, confirmed it's all products combined).

[coob]

The article is about Samsung overtaking Apple in shipments (vs sales).

I was pointing out they they have not overtaken in profits. The two points are not mutually exclusive.