Zach Teutsch/Rosen-Teutsch, Inc.
The smartphone market is not all that complicated right now. When you look at operating profits, as Asymco has done, it's clear that Apple makes almost all the money, while Samsung and HTC fight somewhat successfully for the scraps.
But actually selling phones for profit is not the only success factor in the industry, as Samsung found out last week. You've got to have some patents to protect yourself from lawsuits and competitors.
So, with that in mind, above is a radically simple way to look at the mobile phone industry. Which is one reason that the operating profits chart looks like this:
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