Apple Tops Q3 Handset Vendor Profit List

Apple makes a lot of money. So much money, that they're the most profitable handset vendor...in the wooooorld!

That's what the latest analysis from research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics says, anyway. So, how did Apple wrest the top spot? Well, the company is very careful about how it researches and develops its products; it's also extremely good at keeping costs down, pricing its merchandise at a premium, and it sells lots of hardware. In other words, Apple sells wonderful products and is good with money. Gives you the warm fuzzies, doesn't it?

If Apple is now the most profitable handset vendor in the world, it had to take the crown from some fallen giant. Alas, in this case, it was poor Nokia--we knew them well. While Nokia is still sitting pretty at $1.1 billion dollars worth of profit in the third quarter of 2009, Apple stands tall and strong at an even more impressive $1.6 billion dollars.

Strategy Analytics claims that the best way for Nokia to fight Apple would be to compete with its own line of high-profit phones in the U.S., where it's traditionally sold more in the low-end of the market. Not exactly an original strategy, but it wouldn't be a bad idea idea for the inventors of sidetalkin' to get back to making phones people like.