Comment by Terretta

> Nit: the iPhone was only "in charge" for a brief year or two, and then Android ate its lunch in terms of marketshare.

Marketshare is less interesting than wallet share for many products.

> a minority marketshare can capture the vast majority of profits

Ah, yes, exactly, there it is.

iPhone offers wallet share, and continues to eat Android's lunch in both total spend and ARPU.

There are two cohorts to be in charge of, for two business models: selling something, or giving it away to show ads.

This looks like Android dominates until you get to the section "iPhone vs Android App Spending" and start doing the math that it's winning on total dollars never mind the number of devices.

https://backlinko.com/iphone-vs-android-statistics

Even then, advertisers tend to advertise because they want to sell something. Advertisers marketing something everyone buys, Android audience is best to advertise to. Advertisers with something that depends on extra cash in the wallet before the buyer considers it, iOS audience makes sense. Ad rates reflect this.

Astonishingly, even on the handset makers themselves, there were years Apple captured over 100% of the revenue. That sounds nuts till you dig and see it's as simple as Apple made money, while so many other handset makers lost so much money.