iOS devices combined — including iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch — may have outsold Android devices combined — including Android phones and tablets — by a narrow margin last quarter. During the Q1 2012 Apple conference call today, Tim Cook pegged the iOS device number at 62 million. Android numbers are harder to come by, but last month Andy Rubin said 700,000 were now being activated a day. Given the prior two months were likely less, the following month perhaps more, it probably works out to 60 or 61 million.

During the same call, Tim Cook also revealed that the Amazon Kindle Fire had no affect on iPad sales, far he can tell. Sprint ultimately paid dearly to get the iPhone on their network in order to remain competitive. Verizon announced their results today, and revealed that slightly more than half of their smartphone sales were iPhones.

Apple has long dominated their competitors in terms of smartphone profit share but recently Android was assumed to have a big lead in market share. I’ve long discounted that, saying it’s irrelevant.

And nothing that was announced today changes that.

Apple released the iPhone 4S last quarter, almost 3 months later than many people anticipated. There was massive pent up demand for the iPhone 4S and it sold gangbusters. But Apple probably isn’t releasing another new iPhone this quarter. Or next. Or the one after that. But there will be new Android phones. Maybe not next quarter, but certainly the one after, running Android 4.0 and likely once again upping the spec fight.

Carriers, who can control Android in ways Apple will never allow them to control iPhones, will push these new devices heavily — like they did the original Droid and a plethora of devices since — and many buyers, geek tweakers and feature-phone replacers alike, will buy them.

The market share trends and figures will change and likely change again.

But they’ll constantly be irrelevant. Because they ultimately don’t matter.

Earlier this month I walked into an Apple Store with scratches on my iPhone 4S screen and walked out 30 min. later with a new iPhone 4S and a stern lecture about taking better care of my gear. And without paying a dime.

Last week Apple released iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and iTunes U, taking the first steps towards mainstreaming digital education.

Just this week, as is almost always the case, I downloaded apps with UI so well designed, UX so thoughtful, they made me smile and delight in using my iPhone and iPad again.

The best devices, the best software, the best service. That’s relevant. As a consumer, that’s what matters. Not Apple’s numbers. Not Google’s numbers. That’s what all companies should be fiercely fighting over. Delighting us. That’s the metric they should all be measured by.

That should be the competition.

Horace Dediu of Asymco has taken a look at the financial results of Apple, Nokia, Samsung, LG, Sony-Ericsson, Motorola, HTC, and RIM and put together a comparison of who is making profit and how much. Apple, perhaps not surprisingly, has gone from almost 0 in 2007 to 66% in the latest quarter, 2011.

Three companies which captured 11% of the profits before the modern smartphone era started (four years ago!) now capture 84% of the profits. Only one global brand phone vendor selling non-smart voice-oriented feature phones is still profitable however, as we shall see later, the only reason profits still exist for any vendor is due to the strength of their smartphone portfolio.

The pie chart above tells the story, and for more details and graphics, hit the link below.

[Asymco]

While Apple’s iPhone still only accounts for about 4% of global phone market share they now rake in roughly 50% the profit share. Asymco has charts up for the top 8 mobile phone vendors broken down by market, sales and profit share and while Google’s free Android OS has just crushed Nokia’s Symbian in overall numbers I’d much rather have Apple’s bank account. You?

[Asymco, Android Central]

Interesting visualization of smartphone market-share vs profit-share and how it’s changed from 2007 to 2010. Also interesting how survey results use terms like Android vs. iPhone while the actual business metrics always seem to break down by manufacturer (notice it’s Apple, not iPhone or iOS above, and no Android is mentioned, though Moto, Sammy, et al are front and center).

What I’m curious about is whether consumers think they’re buying an iPhone or iPhone, an Android phone or a Motorola or HTC phone, or an AT&T or Verizon phone? For Apple it doesn’t matter much in the US (or internationally with unlocked models now available pretty much everywhere), but for Google and Microsoft (when Windows Phone 7 launches), what phone do mainstream consumers think they have? Do they know a Droid Eris is an HTC Hero and that’s why they bought it or do they just know it’s on Verizon and does apps?

For developers, manufacturer certainly isn’t anywhere nearly as important as platform (iOS vs. Android) because, with a few exceptions to insure compatibility between devices, they’re targeting OS not hardware. In that case, however, iPhone isn’t a device unto itself because iOS apps also work on the extremely popular iPod touch and iPad, meaning iOS smartphone market share (i.e. iPhone) isn’t the whole story.

That I’ve spent this whole post focusing on Google and their partners and Apple is also strangely consistent with the directions of them arrows on that chart. With Windows Phone 7 launching this month, new webOS 2.0 hardware next year, and BlackBerry on a hot new QNX OS sometime in the future could make it change again by 2012, which is great for consumers.

(And Microsoft, it’s still not to late to launch as Xphone with a Halo Special Edition right on the shelf at AT&T across from iPhone. Really.)

See, we shouldn’t be “fans” of a manufacturer or platform — though we can certainly find one or the other better suited to our current needs — and fight over them. Manufacturers and platform makers should be “fans” of users and fight over us by making the best, least crippled, most advanced, powerful, and delightful products they can, with great services and killer customer support.

Because momentum — and money — will go with those arrows.

[asymco, thanks everyone who sent this in!]

iPhone has tiny market share, monumental profit share according to Canaccord Genuity and IDC, and pretty much everyone else who’s ever mentioned it. TiPb’s been pointing this out for a long time of course, but boy does the above graphic make it visually apparent just what the difference is.

Why do we, as users, care if Apple’s making more money than everyone else (most of them combined)? Because it means Apple can keep making the iPhone they want to make, not the iPhone carriers dictate they make. Apple doesn’t have to add big logos on the front of their phones, add carrier bloatware or let carriers make exclusive deals to lock out apps, lock out search engines, or replace Apple’s own app store with a carrier store that won’t let you take your apps with you to other devices and providers.

Sure, Apple will make mistakes and get things wrong, but ultimately Apple is a company that believes we, the end users, are their customers — not the carriers.

So, yes, Nokia has a bigger market share and Android likely will as well soon enough. Apple’s laughing all the way to the bank, though, and providing a phone that may not be as “open” as we like to us, but certainly isn’t as tragically “open” to the manufacturers and carriers as the competition.

We’ll see what, if anything, that means to a potential Verizon iPhone deal…

[Fortune]

Once again the internet is flooded with catchy headlines that Android outsold iPhone for the first half of 2010. And why not, that’s a great headline. But it’s also — to quote the Simpsons — unpossible.

Which Android device out sold iPhone? No, not the one with the GBs. Android is an OS, not a device. iPhone is a device, not an OS. Android is also not sold, it’s given away by Google for free. Android devices are what’s sold.

Maybe a more accurate, if admittedly awkward, headline would have been “All Android devices combined on all carriers in the US sold more than the iPhone on AT&T during the period where Apple constrained supply right before iPhone 4 launch”.

That’s not to say there aren’t Android devices that sell phenomenally well. Just one look at Android Central, especially any of the articles on Verizon’s Droid brand, will show tons of hot-selling devices. It’s just a completely different business model. No, not a truly open one, but one that values diversity. (I think there’s a good chance my fridge is even running Android now!)

In Canada, and many other countries, iPhone is available on pretty much every carrier and unlocked directly from Apple. There’s no Verizon Droid brand here. The original Droid is called the Motorola Milestone and any bets how well it sells on Telus compared to the iPhone?

Even in the US Verizon’s Motorola Droid 2 just launched yesterday to little in the way of lineups. Anyone think it will outsell iPhone 4 in Q3? Of course not. Th US market is in no way, shape, or form able to express any meaningful “Android outsells iPhone” numbers or vice versa.

If iPhone shows up on Verizon next year, or better yet on Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile US, then at least the carrier field will make for more useful comparison.

And maybe that’s why Apple wants the iPhone on Verizon, because they’re tired of seeing their numbers influenced by the not-iPhone compromises.

With 3.3 million iPad sales last quarter, if that number is lumped in with MacBook and MacBook Pro laptop sales, Apple reportedly slingshots over Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba and Dell to claim the #3 spot in portable computer market share.

Which is okay for headlines and graphs, I guess. As longtime readers know, I’ve repeatedly said market share isn’t anywhere near as important for Apple as profit share. With just 3% of the smartphone market they still make twice the profit Sony, Nokia, and RIM make combined. With single digit PC share they still make umpteen billions on higher end, higher margin Macs.

Sure an iPad can’t do everything a Mac laptop or Windows or Linux laptop or netbook can do, but it can apparently do enough things well enough, and maybe a few things better enough, to be selling a million units a month with no sign of slowing down. It’s not cannibalizing Mac sales to do it either. If it’s cannibalizing netbooks and bargain laptops, already practically loss-leaders for Intel, Microsoft, and the manufacturers, while significantly boosting Apple’s bottom line, then that’s very interesting for the market.

Especially when Microsoft still seems intent on competing with tablets based on Intel chips running Windows 7 — sometime in 2012. My guess is HP/Palm and BlackBerry maker RIM are more likely to try and emulate Apple’s more mobile OS, higher margin strategy.

But back to the headline and graph: 1) should iPad be counted as portable computers alongside laptops and netbooks, and 2) what kind of market does that make where Apple is earning huge margins while everyone else is scraping by on razor-thin, race-to-the-bottom portable PCs?

[Fortune, graphs via Deutsche Bank's Chris Whitmore]

While iPhone accounts for only 3% of handset market share by unit volume, Finacial Times reveals some Goldman’s numbers that show it’s set to capture a stunning 2X the profit share of Nokia, RIM, and Sony — combined.

And Goldman only showed those numbers by way of saying how enthusiastic they are about iPad doing the same thing to the PC industry. That sounds crazy, but iPad almost equalled Mac sales numbers this quarter and while its margins are less than the Mac’s, they’re higher than the razor-thin netbook and bargain basement PC industry where much of the volume rests.

TiPb’s been saying for a while Apple only cared about market share as much as it meant increased profit share. Looks like that’s working out for them.

[Financial Times via Business Insider Daring Fireball]

According to NPD, more smartphones were sold in the US that run Android than smartphones than run iPhone OS in Q1 2010. BlackBerry remains in the number one spot. According to NPD. Apple isn’t a fan of the metrics being used:

“This is a very limited report on 150,000 US consumers responding to an online survey and does not account for the more than 85 million iPhone and iPod touch customers worldwide,” Apple spokesperson Natalie Harrison, told The Loop. “IDC figures show that iPhone has 16.1 percent of the smartphone market and growing, far outselling Android on a worldwide basis. We had a record quarter with iPhone sales growing by 131 percent and with our new iPhone OS 4.0 software coming this summer, we see no signs of the competition catching up anytime soon.”

Since Android can be found in a variety of form factors on all four US carriers, and since Verizon offers it as part of their BOGO (buy one, get one free) promotions, just like the BlackBerry, even if the NPD numbers hold up they’re not surprising.

That the iPhone’s market share is so high in the US, given they’re on one carrier with one form factor, is actually more surprising — only that it happens so often now we’ve stopped being surprised, especially after Apple’s last financial results statement.

And yes, we’re tired of beating that old horse as much as you’re tired of watching it get beaten, but Apple cares only about market share as much as it amplifies profit share. Google isn’t making direct money off of Android (though they do off monetizing services like search, which they also monetize on the iPhone) and on the low-margin, BOGO devices that give BlackBerry its lead, they’re not making Apple-sized margins either (they likely do better on Bold-class devices).

Needless to say, Apple’s not letting AT&T do BOGO for iPhone. For Apple, the iPhone is a premium product and they’d much rather maintain their huge lead in profit share than line discount bins for the sake of per-unit OS market share.

[Android Central, the Loop]

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, market share and profit share aren’t the same thing, and just to prove that point, it looks like Apple’s iPhone has shot passed Nokia to become the most profitable handset on the market. Says Telephony Online:

The firm estimates that Apple’s iPhone operating profit came in at $1.6 billion in Q3, while Nokia recorded only $1.1 billion in operating profit. “With strong volumes, high wholesale prices and tight cost controls, the PC vendor has successfully broken into the mobile phone market in just two years,” said analyst Alex Spektor in the research note.

That’s based on 1.6 billion in Q3 iPhone profits for Apple vs. 1.1 billion for Nokia and their handsets.

Why does this matter to us? High profit margins for Apple means more cash they can re-invest into the iPhone and its technology, and like the MacBook and iMac line (and the boilerplate they keep feeding us on their conference calls) it means they can decide to amp up the innovation, even if costs them a little in the short term. No margin, no room for that kind of competition.

So, Apple, we hope you take a lot of that 1.6 billion, check out your competition, and invest heavily in wowing us again in 2010, b’okay?

[Strategy Analyst via Telephony Online via MacRumors]

Could Apple’s iPhone be destined for 3rd place in smartphone marketshare by 2012, trailing Nokia/Symbian’s 39% and Google Android‘s 14.5% with a paltry 13.7%? That’s what some analysts at Gartner are telling ComputerWorld, with Nokia already in the global lead, and Google’s wallet, cloud-services, rapid iteration of the OS, and variety of form-factors and UIs from multiple manufacturers. Rounding out the other players are Windows Mobile with 12.8%, RIM BlackBerry with 12.5%, various Linux mobiles with a collective 5.4%, and Palm webOS with 2.1%.

iPhone, projected at 71.5 million unites sold, doesn’t have Nokia’s existing footprint or Google’s services, but here’s the thing: a) it has Apple’s still-unmatched 360 degrees of ecosystem integration, b) will likely continue to improve at the same rate it has since the original iPhone 2G running 1.x with no apps or services in 2007, and c) will remain wildly profitable, and that profit share will remain more important to Apple than raw marketshare.

TiPb has discussed this before, of course. Back in August we heard that while the iPhone currently only has 8% of the market, it gets 32% of the revenue. Further back in January, we heard Apple was making double the profits of Nokia.

So, okay, if the Mayans are wrong and we’re all still here in 2012, maybe Apple will only be making 30% margin on a 13.7% share. But that might still be killer compared to very little on a 39% share.

Just compare Apple’s current financial results to the rest of the industry for an indication of how that works…

All Things Digital reports that, based on Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi’s estimates, that while Apple takes in only 8% of cellphone industry revenue, they rake in a bind boggling 32% of the profit. This is similar to their share of desktop computing revenue and profits.

“With the iPhone and its Apps Store, Apple has established a formidable smartphone ecosystem, which history suggests is very difficult to overcome,” the analyst explains. “In fact, Apple has the potential to become a de-facto standard of sorts in the consumer smartphone market, much like it became in the portable media player market with iPods, due in large part to its first mover advantage and tight software and hardware integration.

Indeed. Applying the Mac and iPod business model, especially as convergent, mobile devices begin to outpace traditional players and platforms, was said by Apple to be their strategy from the get go.

Looks like it just might work out for them…

The Wall Street Journal (via MacRumors) published a report stating that while Apple’s iPhone, and RIM’s BlackBerry make up only 3% of mobile phone sales last year, the gobbled up a huge 35% take of the profits. iPhone specifically was pegged at 1% of sales and 20% of profit. Boom! indeed.

Says Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Modoff:

The disparity will become even starker this year when the two will take 5% of the market in unit terms but 58% of total operating profits.

While feature phone maker Nokia can compete due to vast economies of scale, their profits have been declining, as have Sony Ericsson. Palm’s Pre is seen as something of a wildcard, depending on developer support and distribution reach.

For their part, Apple is set to announce Q3 results tomorrow, July 21, at 5pm ET. TiPb will provide our usual coverage of the conference call, especially as results pertain to the iPhone.