Apple Captured 93 Percent of Mobile Profits in Q4 2014: Canaccord

A new report finds Apple captured 93 percent of mobile device (smartphones and feature phones) profits in the holiday quarter (Q4) and 79 percent in the whole 2014. The report comes a couple of weeks after Apple's announcement of earning the highest quarterly profit in corporate history ($18 billion) and record sales of 74.5 million iPhone units in Q4.

According to Canaccord (via Barron's), a Canadian banking and financial services company, Apple might also see a continuous growth for the iPhone with an estimation of 650 million units sold by the end of 2018. "Longer term, we anticipate a gradually moderating rate of growth for the installed base from C'16 through C'18 and estimate 650M iPhone users exiting C'18," said the report.

The Cupertino-based tech firm had Samsung as its closest rival in Canaccord's 'Operating Profit Value Share by OEM by Quarter' report, when it came to ranking based on financial strength. Samsung however, is lagging behind by a good margin in terms of profitability. As per the report, Samsung is accounted for 9 percent of the mobile industry's profits in Q4, and Microsoft lost money, at -2 percent. The rest of the manufacturers on the list all struggled to break even.

As Fortune notes, much of this disparity can be accounted for by the massive profit margins Apple enjoys with its iPhone lineup. The average selling price (ASP) of Apple smartphones in Q4 was $687, while Samsung (which also shipped feature phones in the same quarter) had an ASP of $206.

Apart from selling 74.4 million iPhone units during the quarter, Apple last month reported a jump in revenue year-on-year, growing from $57.6 billion in the same quarter last year to $74.6 billion this year. It had managed to sell 51 million iPhone handsets in the year-ago quarter. The firm added that it sold its billionth iOS device in November.

Cook mentioned that the billionth device was sold in November - a 64GB iPhone 6 Plus. He added that the company has kept the handset in its headquarters as it marks a new milestone.