Asymco has posted an interesting story/graph on the analysis of mobile phone profits. Horace Dediu writes, “if the available profit (i.e. excluding losses) were summed and each vendor’s profit were measured as a percent of this total, this chart would tell the story of the last three years.”
Profit share has mostly shifted from Nokia to Apple (no surprise), and others like Sony Ericsson and LG were also casualties. HTC is shown to be a steady performer but not having displaced much from competitors.
Will Android change this picture? As Nokia is unlikely to license Android, and RIM seems very unlikely and Apple is out of the picture, the only possible contenders are Samsung, LG, HTC, Motorola and Sony Ericsson.
On profitability, smaller challengers are unlikely to make a big impact. Dediu also writes, “The distribution of phones on a global scale is challenging without a brand, and brands are very expensive to build. It’s still possible over a longer timer frame that a small brand like HTC can emerge on a global stage. But in terms of profit capture, challengers will mostly “steal” from the already constrained big brands running with Android.”
