Apple Has 53% Of The Smartphone Industry's Profits, Samsung Has 50%, Everyone Else Is Negative Or Zero

For the longest time, Apple's supporters had an easy retort to anyone that said the iPhone was getting crushed in market share.

They could just say, "Yes, it only has 15% of the smartphone market share, but it has the majority of its profits."

They're probably going to have to start thinking up a new defense because Apple is about to lose its lead in smartphone industry profit share.

Canaccord Genuity is out with its quarterly look at the "value share" in the smartphone market. It uses operating profit estimates from each major smartphone maker to come up with a look at which companies are making money.

Samsung and Apple are the only companies with positive share. Apple has 53% of industry profits, and Samsung has 50%. Apple, however, had 71% last year. Samsung was at 37%.

In the chart below, you can see the trend is clear. Samsung keeps taking share, Apple keeps losing share. With Apple planning a lower-cost iPhone, we doubt it's the profit share leader this time next year.