Apple iPhone Beats Samsung: Galaxy Maker Earns Just 15% Of Smartphone Industry Profits

It’s a long-standing feud in the mobile world: Apple vs, Samsung. And according to the Wall Street Journal, Samsung is trailing badly. While the South Korean company held roughly 50 percent of smartphone industry profits in 2012, Canaccord Genuity says it now claims just 15 percent of profits, according to the Journal.

As other manufacturers lose money in the sector, they account for a negative share of profits so the numbers total more than 100 percent. Canaccord claims that iPhone maker Apple holds a whopping 92 percent of profit share, while Lenovo has a -1 percent share by comparison.

In terms of unit sales, Apple only sells 20 percent of smartphones, but the iOS operating system allows Cupertino to command a higher price point than it would do if it was using the same software as lower-cost rivals. Such is the case with Android, where manufacturers depend less on software to differentiate their product in a crowded marketplace.

Samsung has also reportedly misjudged demand for its S6 device, ordering too many while not ordering enough of the S6 Edge. The company now expects to post another drop in profits for the seventh quarter running.

Denny Strigl, former chief operating officer of Verizon Communications, said to the Wall Street Journal that something will need to happen on Apple’s end to lose its lead. “Apple has to stumble somehow or another, and I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Strigl said. “The dominance of Apple is something that is very hard to overcome.”

Other smartphone makers are faring considerably worse. While BackBerry broke even in Q1 2015, Microsoft recently announced large layoffs to its smartphone business, cutting 7,800 jobs overall from the company.