iPhone capitalizes 75 percent of all the mobile phone profits

Although Apple is not the world's leading mobile phone maker, its cut of both profits and sales puts it unchalenged at the top.

Holding only around 9 percent of the global mobile phone market, Apple took home 75 percent of all profits across the industry last quarter, according to Asymco analyst Horace Dediu.

This left rival Samsung with 16 percent of the profit pie, RIM with 3.7 percent, HTC with 3 percent, and Nokia rounding out the list of 1.8 percent. All together that pie represents around $15 billion in profits for the final quarter of 2011 with Apple taking three quarters of it.

With heavy demand for the iPhone 4S, Apple also regained the top spot in mobile phone sales, capturing almost 40 percent of the industry's overall revenue. Samsung took second place with 25 percent of all sales, followed by Nokia with 12.6 percent and RIM with 8 percent, according to graphic below.. On the bottom down, HTC accounted for 5.5 percent of all mobile phone sales, Motorola 4.4 percent, and Sony Ericsson 2.7 percent.

In terms of market share Apple has also been on the rise. Boosted by the strong demand for the iPhone 4S, Apple recently jumped two spots to take third place as the world's biggest mobile phone maker behind Nokia and Samsung, said research firm IDC. The iPhone maker more than doubled its market share from 4 percent in 2010's final quarter to 8.7 percent, according to IDC.

On the last quarter Apple sold a record 37 million iPhones, a chunk more than the 30 million anticipated by the average analyst.

The reports from Asymco and IDC take into account not just smartphones but all mobile phones. Smartphones have consistently been biting off a greater chunk of the overall market, but they still account for only between 30 and 40 percent of all phones sold across the world, according to most data.

Source of the data and some aditional statistics @asymco.com