Apple's smartphone business recorded an operating profit of US$10.18 billion in the first quarter of 2017, accounting for 83.4% of the total operating profits generated by global smartphone vendors compared to 79.8% of a year earlier, according to Strategy Analytics.

Samsung Electronics posted US$1.58 billion in operating profits in the first quarter, taking up 12.9% of the total profits, which represented a significant decline from 21.9% of a year ago.

Among China-based smartphone vendors, Huawei had higher sales of US$6.47 billion than Oppo's US$5.41 billion in the first quarter, but Oppo had higher operating profits of US$254 million than Huawei's US$226 million, the market research firm indicated.

Oppo accounted for 4.7% of the smartphone industry's total operating profits in the first quarter, followed by Vivo with 4.5% and Huawei with 3.5%, Strategy Analytics added.