The three-month period between October and December 2017 turned out to be a dream quarter for Apple as it managed to snatch more than half of the total smartphone industry revenue, riding on the success of the iPhone X, according to the latest data released by Strategy Analytics on Thursday.
The new report revealed that Apple captured a record 51 percent global smartphone revenue share in the fourth quarter of 2017. The company's iPhone revenue totaled $61.5 billion during the period, an amount that was three times higher than the nearest rival Samsung and seven times higher than China's Huawei.
The iPhone-maker's impressive performance during the period was "helped by solid demand for its premium X model and Apple now accounts for more revenue than the rest of the entire global smartphone industry combined," Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, said in a statement.
"Apple iPhone's average selling price is approaching $800 and almost three times higher than the overall industry average. Apple iPhone is an incredible money-making machine," Mawston added.
In the last quarter, the iPhone's average selling price was $796, which was up from $695 in the final quarter of 2016. According to Apple, it sold 77.3 million iPhones in Q4 2017; however it didn't disclose how many of those iPhones were its tenth anniversary model.
Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley revealed in a separate report that Apple managed to grow its market share in China during the last quarter of 2017.
However, Apple did suffer a slowdown of overall iPhone growth in the country as more people upgrading their Android phones chose handsets from home-grown companies like Oppo and Huawei, instead of older iPhone models.
While sales of older models like the iPhone 6 dropped in the four-week period ending January 14, adoption of the iPhone X continued to accelerate, with the device accounting for over 3 percent of the iPhone active installed base in China.
The iPhone X was followed by iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone 8 with 2.63 percent and 1.36 percent market share, respectively.
