“With the dates of Christmas and Chanukah synced this year, smartphones were once again predominate on everyone’s wish lists,” Chris Klotzbach and Lali Kesiraju report for Flurry. “As we do every year, Flurry took a look at the most gifted smartphones and tablets this holiday season, examining phone and app activation throughout the week leading up to Christmas day and the start of Chanukah.”
“This year, 44% of new phone activations were Apple devices with Samsung seeing 21%,” Klotzbach and Kesiraju report. “Apple devices continue to be the gift to give… missing from this chart is the Google Pixel. With only two devices, the Pixel and Pixel XL, and mixed market reception, Google struggled to drum up excitement this holiday season.”
“Phablets devices (5in-6.9in) continue to eat away at medium phone (3.5in-4.9in) market share. Although medium phones saw the most activations during the week leading up to the holidays, Phablets continue to increase their holiday share, at the detriment of the medium phone,” Klotzbach and Kesiraju report. “Tablet device activations have stabilized and are relatively flat year over year.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: No surprises. Applel’s aspirational iPhone continues to dominate and, with no new iPads for Christmas, tablet activations are flat.
Like iSaid….
Would the Apple naysayers please chime in on the recent graph above and explain why and how AAPL is DOOMED!? gmafb
Exactly. Apple is cruising down the path set by Jobs and it continues to work and work extremely well. Laugh at Tim’s pipeline all you want, but incremental updates followed by S updates just works.
I would be shocked if Apple *had not* sold twice as many as Samsung with the Note 7 fiasco and all. (Samsung even has a worse reputation in Australia where their washing machines supposedly are catching fire too and causing a recall of those too.)
Just because Apple can get by with good enough iPhones while the competition does not just shoot itself in the foot but rather blows its own leg off very publicly is not a reason to think the Apple is doing well.
Apple is by no means doomed. Even if it keeps on the current path it has 5-9 years before it’s back where it was in 1996. But if Apple does not change its path and refocus on the end user, Apple will be back in its 1996 condition before 2025 for sure. There’s just awhile before the path becomes permanent. Cook and company can still make things right — if they’ll wake up and do the right things.
Are these worldwide or just US figures?
Its great but there is a problem..
iPhone yoy activation went down from 49% to 44%… samdungs went from 19 to 21%….While one of their flagship phones was recalled and was not part of their lineup.
Did i make a mistake in the numbers?
Where am i missing the picture here ?
The market has more players this year than last. Samsungs activations also include all of their low end ~60.00 specials and bogo offers. This isn’t indicative of a greater trend, the yoy numbers for example were up for apple last year but the overall sales were basically flat. So it’s not necessarily a good predictor of future behavior. Also, the pc world wants desperately to return to the 90’s when apple was basically the r&d facility of the industry and they could just rip them off without anyone noticing. So any narrative than can be spun to paint apple in a bad light is spun that way, and small issues are blown out of proportion.
Also, I’ve tried to post 6 different comments today from the mdn app, but no dice. Have I been blocked or something?
Nope you are here… i got your response .
And thanks !
It’s funny; the criticisms of Apple and Tim Cook are all theoretical. When it comes to actual numbers…sales, consumer satisfaction, etc…Apple still shines.
I wonder how many of Tim’s critics will now hail his performance? I won’t be holding my breath.
Can anybody throw some light on why Google’s Pixel is missing from this chart?
The text mentions that the Pixel is missing, but doesn’t say why. It could be because no figures are available, or it could be because the figures available are too low to register. I know that Google seldom announces meaningful sales figures, but if this data is of device activations, I assume that the figures are derived from an independent source.
Google data were “scrubbed” by he NSA; don’t want anyone to know
Just to put it clear…
This are US numbers on the Christmas period (Which is very favorable for Apple products) and by manufacturer (not platform).
It’s interesting as an anecdote but nothing more. It’s certainly not a long-term trend nor a worldwide trend.
If you want a more general (And much less glorious) view of the market you can check here :
Source :
http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-ww-monthly-200812-201612
How about we superimpose the PROFITS of each of the 8 mobile operating systems during the same period.
The real problem right now is that there is only ONE viable Android smartphone manufacturer. I could easily see ALL the others giving up and dropping out within the next two years. That’s bad. Much as I despise the ripoff that is Android, as well as the security hell hole Android enables, there has to be active competition in the smartphone market. I’d never consider Samsung a ‘competitor’. They’re just another con-job company who toss in an occasional original idea.
The above problem would only encourage Apple to become even more lazy. That’s also bad.
I personally don’t give a s… if the company I but a product from makes a lot, a bit or no profit at all. I’m not owner of this company, I’m just a simple user. What I want is a product that fits to my need for the best possible price.
That being said. My answer was about the biased numbers showed in this article. The discussion about how much a company earns is another discussion and I don’t contest that Apple actually is the most profitable company out there.
Additionally,
Like it or not, but android is far away from being the awful rip-off you mention. Things are taken from iOS in the same way Apple has taken a lot of ideas from Android especially in the last 3 years. I think it’s quite fair to say that innovation is no longer on Apple’s side. Maybe in 2018/2019/2020 again but certainly not now.
Samsung’s first two Galaxy phones were quite blatant copies. But Samsung is not Android.
Same about security. You can weaken the security of your Android device by tampering the default settings but you don’t have to. “Stupid user” can go with default settings and the chance for a breach is quite low. You can also choose your device in function of your need. Nothing stops you to choose one of the companies which provides continues rolling updates.
Give to iOS the following functions and I could give it a try again. My previous experience with iPhone was just a disaster.
– Dual Sim
– SD Card
– Easy file transfer to/from device
– Return button (I deeply hate the single button on the iPhone)
– default application choice and good data/file transfer between apps
Despite some head-in-the-sand attempts to ignore vast aspects of Android security hell (which I’m too holly-jolly to bother quoting, yet again)…
I like your wish list for iOS devices.
• Dual Sim is reportedly coming with the iPhone 7/+ about time.
• SD Card would be excellent! My expectation is that Apple have avoided it in order to avoid the accompanying security risk. But that’s guessing.
• Count how many iOS file transfer applications there are on Mac alone. You’d think Apple would catch on.
• The Return button on Android is very useful! I can verify! Then again, Apple’s iOS still wins on navigation, despite this oversight.
• Yup, default application setting control would help. I never understood why Apple has blundered data transfer between apps. It’s too complicated for average iOS users? Beats me.
And yes, Android device makers have provided innovative ideas along the way. It’s n0 longer a wasteland of ripoff. Fair enough. I actually like that, being a fan of competition in the marketplace.
But then the multitude of security problems with Android start chiming in my head and all I can say is OMFG this is a mess. Android is NOT ready for the 21st century. Then again, I don’t know of much technology that actually IS ready for the 21st Century. So far, this has been the century when we figure out what CRAP we have for coding tools and practices. Witness the catastrophe of security that is the Internet of Things. Again, OMFG.
Google’s Pixel is another Google flop. They announced it as having the best camera when in actuality it was no better then any other Android. The same goes with everything else about that phone.