Samsung Dominates 95% Of Android Phone Sales Say Analysts

Samsung took a whopping 95-percent of global Android smartphone profits in the first quarter of this year, one analyst firm claims, with no other manufacturer using Google's OS coming close to the South Korean behemoth. The global Android phone business saw profits of $5.3bn, according to Strategy Analytics' sums, of which $5.1bn was sunk straight into Samsung's wallet, the firm calculates.

In second place, trailing Samsung by a huge margin, was LG according to the research firm's figures. LG took 2.5-percent of the overall Android smartphone profit, or $100m, according to the stats, while a similar amount was shared out between all other manufacturers of phones running the platform.

"An efficient supply chain, sleek products and crisp marketing have been among the main drivers of Samsung's impressive profitability" Strategy Analytics suggests. As for LG, "it currently lacks the volume scale needed to match Samsung's outsized profits."

In fact, the analysis firm argues that Samsung probably makes more revenue and profit from Android than Google itself does, and warns that its dominance could pave the way for a skewing in power dynamics as time goes on. Samsung might "request first or exclusive updates" of the Android OS, it's predicted, gaining a further advantage over its rivals.

Samsung's smartphone sales this current quarter could well be even more impressive than Q1 2013, since that period did not include the new Galaxy S 4. That only began shipping at the tail-end of April, with Samsung supposedly shipping 4m units before the month was through. Internal predictions are of blasting through the 10m mark by the end of May.

It's not only smartphones – the only metric these particular figures looked at – that Samsung did well in last quarter. The company's profits overall climbed 42-percent quarter-on-quarter, with mobile sales in particular driving performance.