Apple’s rise from nobody to dominant player in cell phone industry

In various models, the iPhone has been on the market for about three years now. However, in that time they’ve managed to go from the initial announcement and launch of their first phone to a must-have device for any tech geek and Apple fanboy. As seen in the chart above, they’ve even managed to completely embarrass RIM, Nokia, HTC, Sony Ericsson, and other cellphone companies. According to data from Goldman Sachs, Apple, in the light blue, has clearly surpassed all the other companies combined in terms of handset profit. While part of this may be due to simply charging more for their phones, the amount by which Apple is above the other companies speaks for itself considering they’ve really only had one line of phones that updates about once a year.

This chart, combined with the chart below, tells complete the story. Despite only having about 3% of the handset market by volume, Apple will have nearly double the amount of profit as its competitors in the coming years. That really says something about the amount of value consumers are placing on Apple’s iPhone line.

Via [Business Insider]