Sony captured 1% of smartphone industry profits in Q4 2016

by Sohrab Osati | Feb 9, 2017 | 5 comments
Sohrab Osati

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The title pretty much says it all. Patrick Seitz from Investors:

 Apple accounted for 18% of smartphone unit sales in the fourth quarter, but it captured a whopping 92% of industry profits, Canaccord Genuity reported Tuesday.

Apple has a long history of taking the vast majority of smartphone industry profits. In some quarters, it accounts for more than 100% of smartphone profits because other vendors lost money, according to Canaccord Genuity.

Among six major vendors surveyed, four were profitable in smartphone sales in Q4, Canaccord analyst Michael Walkley said in the report. They were Apple, BlackBerry, Samsung and Sony. 

So where does that put Samsung and Sony?

 Samsung accounted for 9% of smartphone industry profits in Q4, while Sony took 1% and BlackBerry less than 1%. 

As for Samsung, despite capturing 9% of the industry profits, their ASAP is considerably lower than Apple, indicating that a bulk of the volume they ship consists in markets where Apple and consequently Sony don’t compete (i.e. low-end devices).

At least Sony isn’t losing money like Microsoft and LG, right?

 Vendors losing money on smartphones last quarter included Microsoft and LG Electronics, Canaccord Genuity said. 

Just last week, Sony revealed their Q3 FY16 earnings for mobile where we learned that sales continue to decline for the Xperia line, though they did squeeze out a profit.