Apple Dominates Mobile Sector This Holiday

Preliminary data from mobile analytics firm Flurry confirms that Apple and Samsung once again dominated the mobile sector this holiday season.

The firm notes that 44 percent of new phone and tablet activations between December 19 and December 25 (a period that includes both Hanukkah and Christmas Day) were Apple devices. Samsung accounted for 21 percent of device activations during the same period with Huawei finishing in third place with a paltry (by comparison) three percent of the pie.

LG, Amazon, Oppo, Xiaomi and Motorola each accounted for two percent.

In light of the disaster that was the Galaxy Note 7 launch, it’s remarkable that Samsung was still able to improve its activation share by one percent compared to the same period in 2015. Apple device activations, meanwhile, slid by 5.1 percent year-over-year (from 49.1 percent).

Had Samsung not ran into issues with the Note 7, one can only imagine how much higher its share would have been (and how much lower Apple’s would have been) but I digress.

Flurry praised both Huawei and LG for their showing which is especially impressive considering neither manufacturer has a device within the top 35 devices activated. Interestingly enough, Google and its two new phones – the Pixel and Pixel XL – failed to make the chart.

Flurry data also reveals that consumer interest in phablet devices (screen sizes between five inches and 6.9 inches) continues to climb, largely at the expense of “medium” phones in the 3.5-inch to 4.9-inch range. Indeed, device makers are partially to blame here as many no longer offer flagship devices with small screens.