Profit is not the only metric. Market share is a valid metric to compare products (as long as you have a sustainable position).
If android was selling five times as many units as apple, but with only 15% the margin, then apple would still be the most profitable, but would be losing the mindshare war.
Eventually devs would be concentrating their efforts on android first, and perhaps only for android. In the long term, marketshare is the more important metric.
This is '99-bubble "sell the eyeballs" thinking. The point of business is profit. You can defer profitability, for instance to achieve market share in a market where having the greatest share promises future profits. But for that to be meaningful, you have to have a story about how buying market share with lower profits is going to offer a return on investment in the future. What's Samsung's story?
You must have missed the part where I wrote as long as you have a sustainable position.
In the case of Apple vs Samsung, the smart phone market is at a different level of maturity that lack of market share is not going drive developers away from iOS, but if we were much earlier in the market then it would be a significant issue for them.
What's Samsung's story?
I don't know what sort of margins Samsung is making on their devices, but they don't have to make as much per device as Apple to still be a success.
Profit is not the only metric. Market share is a valid metric to compare products (as long as you have a sustainable position).
If android was selling five times as many units as apple, but with only 15% the margin, then apple would still be the most profitable, but would be losing the mindshare war.
Eventually devs would be concentrating their efforts on android first, and perhaps only for android. In the long term, marketshare is the more important metric.