美国目前依然是三星电子(Samsung Electronics Co.)和苹果公司(Apple Inc.)的最大市场，当这两家公司本周因产品抄袭指控在美国对簿公堂之际，它们最新发布的季度收益报告使人可以清楚地看到，官司胜败对两家公司的经济利益究竟会有多大的影响。
Associated Press三星智能手机的发货量一直高于苹果。三星上周五公布，在截至6月底的这个季度实现利润5.19万亿韩圆（合46亿美元），同比增长48%，利润连续第二个季度创历史新高。该公司的电信部门收入增长60%，营业利润增长近两倍，公司财务业绩的增长几乎完全归功于该部门。
与此同时，苹果上周早些时候宣布，它在这一季度实现利润88亿美元。尽管利润同比增长了21%，但仍令分析师们感到失望。苹果iPhone手机销售情况不及预期。据该公司高管说，这一定程度上是因为顾客预计新一代iPhone将很快上市。
不过，苹果的代理律师本周将在加州圣何塞(San Jose)的联邦法庭上给出一种不同的解释。苹果的律师在上周提交给法院的文件中声称，三星通过侵犯苹果的知识产权获得了数十亿美元的利润，给苹果造成了数亿美元的损失。
除非能在最后一刻达成和解，否则苹果与三星将对簿公堂。去年4月，苹果就是在这家法院提起了对三星的第一桩诉讼，指控其非法抄袭iPhone的技术功能和设计，用于自己的旗舰智能手机产品Galaxy S。
三星则在另外五个国家对苹果提出反诉，双方之间的大战由此扩展至十多个国家，涉及数十桩案子。
Bloomberg News三星和苹果本周将因产品抄袭指控在美国对簿公堂。图为三星旗舰智能手机Galaxy S III。分析人士说，自双方间的第一桩诉讼开始以来，三星在智能手机发货量方面一直高于苹果。在三星的电视机、半导体和显示屏零部件等其他产品的增长微乎其微或经历周期性的下滑之际，智能手机业务成为对三星总体业务影响最大的一块。按收入计算，三星是全球最大的科技产品制造商。
与此同时，苹果的手机业务则增长缓慢，不过其手机业务的利润率依然是行业内最高的。
三星从去年年初开始停止公布其手机发货量的数据。但在三星上周五发布季度业绩后，市场分析人士估计，三星第二季度的智能手机发货量在5,000万部以上，几乎得到苹果在本季度公布的iPhone发货量2,600万部的两倍。分析人士还估计，三星智能手机的发货量超过了其第二季度全部手机发货量9,500万部的一半。
苹果在提交给法庭的文件中要求三星赔偿25.25亿美元的损失，大约相当于三星电信部门在推出受到苹果指责剽窃其设计的第一款手机后的两年里获得的运营利润（170亿美元）的15%，大约相当于三星这一期间全部运营利润的8%。
三星也在上周向法庭提交了文件，公司的多名律师在文件中称苹果的损害赔偿请求相当荒谬。
三星在诉讼摘要中写道，苹果指控三星使用与苹果借鉴自其他竞争者的完全相同的公共领域的设计理念，此举意在把三星赶出市场；苹果在三星开始研发手机技术差不多20年后才卖出第一部iPhone，若非得益于三星的专利技术，苹果一部手机也卖不出去。
在周五举行的三星管理人员与投资分析师的电话会议上，三星没有对苹果的诉讼做进一步评论，投资分析师也没有提起此事。相反，他们关注的是三星电信部门运营利润率的小幅下降──从第一季度的18.4%下降到17.4%。面对外界的疑问，三星的高管们说，运营利润下降是三星向网络运营商出售电信设备的这一规模相对较小的业务所致，他们还表示，智能手机的利润率出现了增长。
根据汤森路透(Thomson Reuters)的StreetEvents对此次电话会议的记录，在被要求估计该部门现阶段的运营利润时，电信部门的高管金汉中(Kim Han-joong)说，他预计本季度的运营利润率将与第二季度持平。
不过，从绝对意义上讲，在今年余下的时间里，预计智能手机将继续为三星的利润增长提供动力。
券商Hanmag Securities的分析师Y.B. Oh说，据他预计，由于三星旗舰智能手机Galaxy S III从5月发布之后销售量增长一直在加速，电信部门当前季度的运营利润将达到4.8万亿韩圆，高于刚刚结束的这个季度的4.2万亿韩圆。
分析人士预计，三星当前季度的整体运营利润将超过7万亿韩圆，或将助三星创下另一个季度净利润新高。
As Samsung Electronics Co. goes to court this week with Apple Inc. over product-copying allegations in the biggest market yet, the U.S., both companies' latest quarterly results make clear what's financially at stake.
Samsung on Friday announced a record quarterly profit, its second in a row, of 5.19 trillion won ($4.6 billion), up 48% from a year earlier, for the April-to-June period. Its telecom unit experienced a 60% jump in revenue and near-tripling in operating profit, accounting for nearly all of the company's financial improvement.
Meanwhile, Apple earlier last week reported a profit of $8.8 billion for the same three months, a figure that disappointed analysts despite being a 21% increase from a year earlier. Apple fell short of forecasted sales of its iPhone, in part, executives said, because customers expect a new version will soon appear.
However, attorneys for Apple will lay out a different explanation in a San Jose, Calif., federal court this week. 'Samsung has reaped billions of dollars in profits and caused Apple to lose hundreds of millions of dollars through its violation of Apple's intellectual property,' Apple's lawyers claimed in court documents filed last week.
Barring a last-minute settlement, Apple and Samsung are heading to trial in the venue where Apple in April last year first sued its South Korean rival on allegations of illegally copying technical features and designs of the iPhone for its own flagship line of smartphones, called Galaxy S.
Samsung countersued in five other countries and the battle spread from there to several dozen cases in nearly a dozen countries.
In the time since the original suit, Samsung has surpassed Apple in unit shipments of smartphones, analysts say. With Samsung's other products like TVs, semiconductors and display components experiencing little growth or cyclical downturns, the smartphone business has emerged as the biggest influence on the overall health of the world's largest technology manufacturer by revenue.
Meanwhile, Apple has seen its growth in the cellphone industry slow, though it has maintained its industry-leading profit margins.
Samsung stopped disclosing data about its cellphone shipments early last year. But following Samsung's quarterly results announcement on Friday, market analysts estimated it shipped just over 50 million smartphones, almost twice as many as the 26 million iPhones Apple said it shipped in the quarter, and that they accounted for more than half of Samsung's overall shipments of about 95 million cellphones.
In its court filing, Apple said it is seeking $2.525 billion in damages from Samsung. That is about 15% of the $17 billion operating profit from Samsung's telecom division in the two years since it released the first version of the smartphone Apple says infringes on its design─and about 8% of all of Samsung's operating profits in that time.
In Samsung's own court filing, also made last week, the company's lawyers called Apple's damages request 'absurd.'
'Apple seeks to exclude Samsung from the market, based on its complaints that Samsung has used the very same public-domain design concepts that Apple borrowed from other competitors,' reads the Samsung brief. 'Apple, which sold its first iPhone nearly 20 years after Samsung started developing mobile phone technology, could not have sold a single iPhone without the benefit of Samsung's patented technology.'
Samsung made no additional statements about the Apple lawsuit in an analyst conference call with company officials Friday─and investment analysts didn't bring it up. They instead focused on a slight decrease in the operating profit margin of Samsung's telecom unit, to 17.4% from 18.4% in the first quarter. In response to questions, executives attributed the decline to weakness in its smaller business of selling telecom equipment to network providers and said that smartphone margins grew.
Pressed to estimate the division's operating margin for the current period, telecom executive Kim Han-joong said he expected it to be flat compared with the second quarter, according to a transcript of the conference call by Thomson Reuters StreetEvents.
In absolute terms, however, smartphones are expected to keep driving Samsung's profit upward for the rest of the year.
Hanmag Securities analyst Y.B. Oh said he expects the telecom division to post an operating profit of 4.8 trillion won in the current July-to-September period, up from 4.2 trillion won in the just-ended quarter, as sales of Samsung's flagship Galaxy S III smartphone accelerate from the May to July launch and ramp-up.
Analysts forecast Samsung's overall operating profit will exceed 7 trillion won for the current quarter, likely driving the company to another quarterly net profit record.