iPhone sales may have declined for three consecutive quarters, but the latest data from research firm Strategy Analytics suggests Apple is unsurprisingly still doing exceptionally well in the smartphone market.
Apple captured a record 91% of profits in the worldwide smartphone market in the third quarter, or $8.5 billion of the overall $9 billion in profits recorded by all vendors combined, according to Strategy Analytics.
Apple's biggest competitor Samsung was nowhere to be found on the list, as Chinese smartphone makers Huawei, Vivo, and OPPO took the second, third, and fourth spots respectively with between 2.2% and 2.4% of profits.
"Apple’s ability to maximize pricing and minimize production cost is hugely impressive and the iPhone continues to generate monster profits," said Linda Sui, Director at Strategy Analytics. "Huawei, Vivo and OPPO are the next three most profitable smartphone vendors globally this quarter, but they are still a long way behind Apple."
Apple's profit margin is impressive given no other smartphone maker generated more than $200 million in profits during the quarter, according to Strategy Analytics. Apple's share of profits was some 40× larger than its closest competitor.
iPhone sales declined on a year-over-year basis in the second, third, and fourth quarters of the 2016 fiscal year, after rising only marginally during the first quarter, which makes Apple's record-breaking smartphone profits even more impressive.
BMO Capital Markets analyst Tim Long previously estimated Apple captured 103.6% of smartphone industry profits in the third quarter. Long's estimate factors in companies that lost money during the quarter, placing Apple above 100%.
Wednesday October 29, 2025 4:22 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to drop iOS 26.1, the first major point release since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least six notable changes and improvements to look forward to. We've rounded them up below.
Apple has already provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 26.1, which means Apple will likely roll out the update to all compatible...
Friday October 31, 2025 1:40 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a small but helpful change for iPhones, and it could prevent you from running late to something important.
Specifically, when an alarm goes off in the Clock app, there is a new "slide to stop" control on the screen for turning off the alarm. On previous iOS 26 versions, there is simply a large "stop" button, which could be accidentally tapped.
The new ...
Monday October 27, 2025 7:55 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more.
Below, we outline key details about iOS 26.1.
Release Date
Given that Apple has yet to seed an iOS 26.1 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, the...
Friday October 31, 2025 7:32 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple has just given a strong indication that it will not be releasing any additional new Macs for the remainder of the year.
Apple's CFO Kevan Parekh dropped the hint during the company's earnings call on Thursday:On Mac, keep in mind, we expect to face a very difficult compare against the M4 MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac launches in the year-ago quarter.Parekh essentially gave a heads up ...
Thursday October 30, 2025 4:42 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
One thing worth...
Monday October 27, 2025 4:51 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is designing an updated version of the Apple TV 4K, and rumors suggest that it could come out sometime in the next couple of months. We're not expecting a major overhaul with design changes, but even a simple chip upgrade will bring major improvements to Apple's set-top box.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
We've rounded up all the latest Apple TV rumors.
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Wednesday October 29, 2025 7:13 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Rumors are stoking excitement for the next-generation iPad mini that Apple is reportedly close to launching. So what should we expect from the successor to the iPad mini 7 that Apple released over a year ago? Read on to find out.
Processor and Performance
Apple is working on a next-generation version of the iPad mini (codename J510/J511) that features the A19 Pro chip, according to...
Apple's iPhone 18 Pro models could be available in new rich and warm color option, according to a known leaker.
The Weibo user known as "Instant Digital" today suggested that next-year's iPhone 18 Pro models will be available in at least one of the following color options: Coffee, purple, and burgundy.
The iPhone XR, iPhone 11, iPhone 12, iPhone 14, and iPhone 14 Pro were all available in ...
Apple launched the Apple TV HD, the Siri Remote, tvOS, and their accompanying App Store a decade ago today, marking a major overhaul of the device.
The new vision for the Apple TV was unveiled on September 9, 2015 during Apple's "Hey Siri" event in San Francisco, where CEO Tim Cook introduced the device with the statement, "The future of TV is apps." The announcement represented a major...
Apple really is rudderless these days. Blowing billions of dollars on hair brained driverless car projects, acquiring headphone companies, selling ridiculous gaudy $20K watches....
I love Apple, I have owned every iPhone ever made, but it's sad to watch them try to turn in to a fashion/accessory brand and completely losing focus on what they do best. It's absolutely disgusting that they only JUST this year increased the base model iPhone from 16GB to 32GB. They should have done that years ago. It just goes to show that Apple cares more about profits than anything else, even at the expense of their long term brand.
The future of tech is AI. Apple should be starting gigantic research initiatives in the field of AI instead of wasting time with gimmicky watches and car projects. Apple has done an excellent job on making a truly impressive CPU/GPU for the iPhone (the A10 is amazing), and I wish they would focus more on the raw tech rather than trying to make their phones & laptops even more thinner and prettier.
7) This profit-first mentality has worked for Apple for decades, as it has for every other company ever...
Completely wrong, when Apple focused on profits-first and vision/innovation second, they got obscenely greedy and nearly killed Apple in the 90s. Blackberry focused on profits, rested on laurels and forgot to innovate, move forward, and died. Vision/innovation has to be first, then profits will follow. Steve Jobs described the demise of Apple in the 90s:
“they cared about making a lot of money… they got very greedy and instead of following the original trajectory of the original vision which was to make this thing an appliance and get this out there to as many people as possible, they went for profits, and they made outlandish profits for about 4 years, one of the most profitable companies in america for 4 years, and what that cost them was their future, because what they should have been doing was making rational profits…”
See minute 39
Steve then came back at the end of the 90s and saved Apple by innovating with iMac, digital hub, changing the world with iPod, then profits followed.
