Android still leads the UK smart phone market despite Apple's staggering results, announced today. The iPhone has overtaken Android in the US, but the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S2 still keep Google-powered phones on top on these shores.
A third of smart phones sold in Britain are iPhones, but Android phones still make up nearly half of the market. Symbian and BlackBerry are the losers as Apple and Android are growing at a similar rate.
In the last 14 weeks of 2011, Apple sold 37 million iPhones around the world, helping the Californian company report a record quarterly revenue of $46.33bn, and record quarterly net profit of $13.06bn -- more than double the profit of the same time the previous year.
That's a staggering increase from numbers that were already little short of jawdropping: in the last quarter of 2010, Apple made a total of $26.74bn and a profit of $6bn.
The iPhone now owns 34 per cent of the British smart phone market, with Android on 44 per cent. Symbian and BlackBerry dropped sharply, with Windows Phone failing to make much of a dent in the market despite the high-profile launch of the Nokia Lumia 800. In fact, more Symbian phones were sold at the end of 2011 than Windows Phones.
Android sales continue to grow, but the iPhone grew faster with the arrival of the iPhone 4S. In the US, the iPhone has actually overtaken Android, despite the fact that it's one phone against more than a hundred.
We reckon Samsung's popularity in Britain has driven Android's continued success in Blighty. The hyper-popular Galaxy S2 arrived in the UK in May, for example, but only arrived on different US networks throughout the autumn and winter, so hasn't had time to make the same impact.
Apple also sold 15 million iPads and 5.2 million Macs, all up on last year. By those numbers, there were more iPhones sold each day than there were people born.
The only product to sell less than the previous year is the iPod -- but Apple still shifted 15.4 million of the different flavours of MP3 player.
Apple made more profit than Google made in total during the quarter. The fruity phone-flinger now has a gobsmacking £62.3bn cash reservoir, and its market cap -- the total value of its shares -- makes it worth more than Greece. The country.
If we compare Apple's revenue to a country's gross domestic product -- the market value of a nation's products and services in a year -- then Apple made roughly as much in the last 14 weeks of 2011 as Bulgaria made in the whole of 2010. Looking at Apple's annual revenue, it made more than Singapore, Israel or Ireland. With its spare cash, going by GDP, Apple could buy Morocco.
And all this in the year Apple co-founder and figurehead Steve Jobs quit the company and later died.
But even without Jobs at the helm there's no sign the company will slow down from making money hand over fist. Apple bosses predict the firm will make $32.5bn in the first quarter of 2012.
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Comments 9
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damien2501 25 January, 2012 15:31
Of course it does, android is an operating system. iPhone is a phone. Its like pitting 1 linux laptop against all of the laptops that run windows.
shauney3 25 January, 2012 16:07
"Apple made more profit than Google made in total during the quarter. "
Google's Android is opensource software, so unless I am mistaken, they don't make any profit from it directly? Or are you referring to the company's whole business?
Mark Anderson 25 January, 2012 16:18
"In fact, more Symbian phones were sold at the end of 2011 than Windows Phones."
Not realy a surprise given the Lumia was only released on 14 November in dear old blighty. That's only six weeks sales to the 25 December.
That said, it's going to take time. The iPhone is king just now and the SGS a contender.
Rich Trenholm 25 January, 2012 16:31
Shauney3, that refers to the whole of Google. Apple's profit was greater than Google's revenue.
George Bailey 25 January, 2012 16:49
samsung sold 35 million smart phones and 120 million feature phones.so is still world leader in phones
anonymous 25 January, 2012 17:11
not suprised!
people r starting to realize how sh** iphone is
plus y wud u spend more wen all the stuff done by iphone is covered by an cheap android phone
(except for siri technically useless in the UK anyways!)
jayce35 25 January, 2012 23:08
all this means is that apple are ripping people off
Alimus 26 January, 2012 12:07
@Rich
The comparison with Google's total revenue for the quarter is a little misleading, they're a completely different kind of business to Apple. A better comparision would have been to Samsung who's operating revenue is predicted to be $40.5 billion for Q4 2011, with a profit of $4.5 billion. Admittedly these are predicted figures which is perhaps why you didn't go with them, but it demonstrates that Apple's competitors are still shifting as much stock, they just aren't making the same kind of profit margins.
Interestingly though despite its lower revenues Google is a more profitable company than Apple, with profits (as a % of total revenues) running at 33% compared to Apple's 28% (data from Q4 2011).
Rich Trenholm 27 January, 2012 10:46
Interesting stuff, Alimus, thanks. As you say, comparing Apple and Google is comparing apples and oranges, but it does give an idea of the scale Apple is operating on