Apple and Samsung Are the Only Profitable Smartphone Makers

Apple's iPhone 4S and Samsung's Galaxy S II are the most popular smartphones available. These and their other mobile devices have made these two companies not just the two most profitable in the business, but the only ones that are.

Last quarter, Apple made $11.6 billion and Samsung pulled in $4.5 billion. Tavis McCourt from the market analysis firm Raymond James says that these two companies accounted for 100% of the profits by any mobile company in Q1. Samsung is the biggest smartphone maker in the world, in number of units shipped. Apple is number two.

On the other side of the coin, HTC recently reported that Q1 was its second straight unprofitable quarter, while Nokia is struggling in its shift from Symbian to Windows Phone. Plunging demand for BlackBerrys resulted in RIM taking a loss last quarter as well.

McCourt said, “It is getting increasingly hard to understand where the rest of the device vendors will get the capital to fund necessary R&D and sales and marketing investments to continue to compete with Apple and Samsung."