Say company X sells 200 phones and makes $1000 profit.
Company Y sells 150 phones and makes $10,000 profit.
In this case we are comparing apples with apples. So it is a valid metric of comparison. In the same reasoning, if company Z sells 200 phones and loses money then obviously that is bad and company Z could potentially go bankrupt.
Well, company X is shipping its phone with an almost free (as in beer) software stack. If their entire stack was paid software, there would have been some more margin for profit. I cannot even guesstimate on how much would their profit share increase (given that higher price would mean lower sales), but it might be significant.
Company Y sells 150 phones and makes $10,000 profit.
In this case we are comparing apples with apples. So it is a valid metric of comparison. In the same reasoning, if company Z sells 200 phones and loses money then obviously that is bad and company Z could potentially go bankrupt.