The news is not being reported by the Tame Apple Press, which is currently peddling a theme that the smartphone industry is in decline, because Apple can't make money from it. Unfortunately all Apple's main rivals, including Samsung, are all doing rather well at the moment.

Shenzhen-based Huawei reported a 41 percent increase in its consumer business group revenue to $11.6 billion thanks to strong sales of high-end smartphones, the company said in a statement. This is Apple's specific playground which appears to suggest that the reason Apple is not making so much money from smartphones is because it is no longer competitative or inovative.

"We saw particularly fast growth in traditionally high-end smartphone markets such as Europe and emerging markets including North Africa, Central Asia and Latin America," Huawei's head of consumer business Richard Yu said in a statement.