Compared to LG, Nokia and other cellphone makers Apple doesn’t sell that many devices. Compared to the same cellphone makers, though, Apple makes way more money. Apple’s got the right strategy: they sell premium products and they release a new iteration once a year. Apple has its own OS and it won’t let the carrier mess with it. Period.

So take a look at the chart below, complied by Canaccord Genuity. Fortune also reports:

We are also impressed with Apple’s ability to monetize its innovative products through selling high-margin consumer products that drive strong earnings results and growth trends for Apple shareholders. A case in point is the mobile phone market, where most handset OEMs struggle to post a profit or even 10% operating margins (except RIM and recently HTC), while we estimate Apple boasts roughly 50% gross margin and 30%+ operating margin for its iPhone products.

In fact, Nokia, Samsung and LG combined sold roughly 400M mobile handsets worldwide in the first half of 2010 with a combined value share of 32% of handset industry profits, while Apple sold roughly 17M units over the same time period and captured an estimated 39% of industry profits, or greater than the top three global handset OEMs combined. Apple leads the industry in every metric except for unit share.