By Graham K. Rogers

Following last week's news that only Apple is showing positive growth (16%) for PC sales worldwide, it appears that there is an even tighter grip on profits for its smartphones. While many commentators wring their hands about Apple's small share of the handphone market, it has never been market share that has driven the company.

At the time of the announcement of the iPhone in 2007, Steve Jobs stated that they were aiming for a share of 1%, which seemed unambitious at the time.

Apple now holds just under 20% of the market for smartphones yet it creams off 92% of the profits, Yigal Grayeff reports on Seeking Alpha. only Samsung, with its far larger market share, taking 15%.

That apparent discrepancy in the figures is due to the rest of the top 8 manufacturers of handsets making losses. And to rub salt into the wounds, that 93% is up from 65% the year before.

See also: Apple's dominance of profit almost complete (Yigal Grayeff, Seeking Alpha)

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. He is now continuing that in the Bangkok Post supplement, Life.