HTC and Nokia failed because they could not respond competitively to the iPhone.
Your list of data about irrelevant companies is nonsense. Meaningless strawman Red herring obfuscation.
Apple is not HTC, Nokia, HP, nor Micron. To assume so is to make an ass out of you, and you make the same mistake that all other ANAL-CYSTS make, that Apple is just another hardware company selling commodity hardware at the lowest price in competition with other hardware companies also selling hardware at the lowest price. It's not.
Not a single one of those companies had a world's record quarter for ALL businesses in the world. What makes you think those businesses are at all comparable?
Samsung just gave guidance that is far worse than AAPL's. . . and its market share in China is dropping fast. . . and In Samsung's last calendar quarter of 2015, the quarter equivalent to the one Apple just reported with a modest 1.7% quarterly Year over revenue Year gain, Samsung reported a huge 40% Year over revenue Year DROP!
At the same time, according to Strategy Analytics, Samsung grew their market share by 6%:
Samsung widens worldwide smartphone unit share lead --Thursday, January 28, 2016 · 2:02 pm
How can that be? Samsung grows their world wide market share but posts a huge revenue DROP???
First of all, the phones they are reporting as selling are NOT all smartphones selling for large prices. In fact, in the Apple v. Samsung lawsuit Judge Lucy Koh ordered Samsung to reveal their product mix of phones they ship. Under protest, Samsung complaining the data was a company secret, finally revealed under discovery that they shipped ~30% Android smartphones, ~40% Android feature phones, and another ~30% basic Android phones with minimal capabilities (dumb phones). That means that only ~30% of the Android phones that are historically attributed to Samsung Smartphones shipped are actually "smartphones." But all these reporting agencies ASSUME that since Samsung makes the phone, and that it is labelled an Android phone, it just has to be SMART, so they count them as "smartphones." But, it turns out that, they aren't, only 30% were actually true "smartphones." The rest were lesser, cheaper phones, a large percentage were even the cheapest phones made for parts of the world where smartphones can't even be supported for lack of internet infrastructure. Oops. These phones were STILL BEING COUNTED AS SMARTPHONES by IDC, GARTNER, STRATEGY ANALYTICS, CALALYS, and every other reporting company that counts "smartphones!"
The reporting companies do that for EVERY company making Android phones. In the category called "Others," the vast majority of the makers do not even attempt to compete with the major makers of smartphones, and only make feature phones or dumb phones. Ergo, the Android market is primarily NOT smartphones, but rather large numbers of lesser ability phones for parts of the world where smartphones do not really work as we are accustomed to them working.
Samsung started experiencing sales difficulties in the last calendar quarter of 2014 in the smartphone sales. In that quarter, Samsung announced they were REVISING their product mix, and uncharacteristically, they even announced the percentage of smartphones they were now going to be making instead, 19%, and concentrating more on the lower, better selling feature phones and even lower basic phones for the rest of the world.
In the following quarters, Samsung's leading position China in Smartphones was lost to Apple and Xiaomi, with Apple for a time reaching 24% (It's now dropped to 19% of the smartphone market in China but a lower percentage of the overall phone market), and Xiaomi and other Chinese makers such as Huawei also grabbed a large portion of Samsung's feature phone share in China. But Samsung increased its sales of the lower, cheaper market. . . but that did not improve its bottom line.
Ergo, lots more cheaper phones, but way lower revenues dropping 40% over 2015 and a huge loss in the upper level smartphone market.
The major take away is don't believe those huge numbers of "Android Smartphones" being reported as shipped on those comparison of numbers of phones sold (shipped) lists. Only something under 30% of those huge Android numbers shipped are actually smartphones. The rest are anything BUT smart. The only company reported on those lists that sells 100% smartphones is Apple.
As for your posted linked article, the article's main point seems to be this:
"What really spooked investors was [Apple CEO Tim Cook's] negative comments around what he's seen so far around greater China -- specifically Hong Kong -- because China is so key to the Apple growth story," says Daniel Ives, managing director at FBR Capital Markets. "At this point Apple is not being valued like a growth company. It's being valued as a mature company."
I heard the entire Financial Conference Call. . . and I heard nothing from CEO Tim Cook and what he saw ". . . so far around greater China -- specifically Hong Kong" except that Apple's iPhone sales actually INCREASED during the quarter by 19% when everyone else was claiming they were decreasing. Where were these negative comments"
The bullet points of Cook's comments on China and India were essentially:
I keep waiting for the Annual Report from UYM where we can see the billions in shareholder value that he’s created, and the awesome competition-killing products which will demonstrate why Tim Cook is such an idiot.
But all I get is crickets...