New battle-lines in the war for mobile

The mobile market seems to be all anybody ever talks about these days. Consumers have more smartphones and tablets to choose from every day. For the vendors, however, it's not all fun and games.

For every Apple, there is a Nokia. And for every Google Android, there's a Symbian. There are, in other words, haves and have-nots. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the smartphone market. Back in May, research firm Asymco released a study it conducted on smartphone market operating profits spanning the second quarter of 2007 to now. And what the company found was shocking: Out of the $14.4 billion in operating profits generated in the fourth quarter, Apple made 73% of them. Samsung, its chief competitor, nabbed 26%. The remaining 1% -- a mere $144 million -- went to HTC. It was a much different story back in 2007, when Nokia owned well over half of the smartphone market's operating profits. RIM, LG, and Sony Ericsson were also doing well. Now, they've lost it all.