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Swimming in smartmobe profit? Let us guess, you're Tim Cook?

Pretty much all the paydirt goes to Cupertino these days, says analyst

Apple single-handedly accounted for nine-tenths of smartphone profits in the first months of 2015, beancounters claim.

Analysts at Canaccord Genuity have told the Wall Street Journal that the Cupertino giant brought in 92 per cent of profits amongst the eight top smartphone vendors.

Samsung claimed 15 per cent of profits for the quarter, a figure that was possible because other vendors took a loss and counted against the total profits. Microsoft, for example, was a –4 per cent drag on profits, while Lenovo was –1 per cent and BlackBerry was flat at 0 per cent.

The analyst house says that though it pegs Apple at just under 20 per cent of total sales, Apple is able to collect huge profits thanks to the big mark-up on iPhone sales, while Android developers are locked in a pricing battle with one another.

Apple has been known to charge a premium for its products over hardware and manufacturing costs, and the iPhone is no exception. Teardown reports suggest that the iPhone 6 Plus in particular nets Apple a huge profit over its cost of manufacturing.

Apple fans will counter that Cook and Co. are only able to collect the huge mark-ups because their products are so well built (at least the ones that don't spontaneously combust in the pants of their owners).

Co-founder Steve Jobs famously said that Apple wouldn't attempt to enter the low-cost end of the market because it "didn't know how" to build a cheap device.

Meanwhile, Apple continues to rake in cash from the iPhone. The Cupertino giant reported $40.2bn in iPhone revenues last quarter and has reportedly put in an order for 90 million new units to arrive this fall. ®

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