ABI Research highlights Apple’s immense profits in the smartphone industry

Apr 30, 2012 11:31 GMT  ·  By

A new study by ABI Research has determined that the cellular handset market shipped 353.5 million handsets in Q1 2012, and that Apple - which still claims to be learning about emerging markets - continues to sell $1000 handsets at an alarming rate.

ABI notes that the smartphone market produced 142 million shipments in Q1, with Apple’s 35.1 million shipments supported by APAC (Asia-Pacific).

According to the research paper by ABI, "Aside from Apple, handsets OEMs that are not based in APAC such as RIM (11.1 M) and Nokia (82.7 M) are quickly losing ground to their APAC based competitors as companies such as ZTE and Huawei continue to move up the value chain on both their home turf and abroad.”

With 13.7 million handsets sold, Even LG has managed to “crawl its way back to profitability,” reads the report, with Michael Morgan, senior analyst, mobile devices, adding: “Apple and Samsung have continued to dominate the NA market and the rest are quickly looking to China and APAC as their best chance to capture market share.”

ABI reveals HTC has admitted defeat and that it will be looking towards China for future growth. With only 7.9 million units sold, the company says it will be developing its own custom application processors with an eye on the low cost smartphone market.

Finally, Sony Ericsson is mentioned with 7.3 million smartphones sold. The company will begin to take orders from APAC as well.

Kevin Burden, vice president, mobile devices, suggests  Apple are hypocrites, as the company is selling countless high-class devices claiming it is still learning the rules of the game.

“Despite the rush of OEMs to win in APAC’s low cost environment, many OEMs may find that their Apple problem still has not been resolved. Apple claims that it is still learning about emerging markets, yet it continues to sell $1000 handsets at an alarming rate,” said Burden.