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Apple dominates holiday shopping season; iOS accounted for 49% of new device activations

Updated Dec 19th, 2018 9:10PM EST
iOS Vs Android
Image: iMore

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Shares of Apple may be slumping, but the company’s products continue to resonate with consumers in impressive fashion. During the Christmas holiday shopping period, measured from December 19th through December 25th, iOS devices accounted for nearly 50% of all new device activations, according to data recently released from the analytics firm Flurry.

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Following not too closely behind was Samsung, whose products cumulatively accounted for 19.8% of new activations. Now interestingly enough, Apple’s share of new activations actually dipped a bit year over year. During the same period a year-ago, Flurry found that iOS devices accounted for 51.3% of new activations, a drop of 2.2%.

Of course, given that we’re playing with percentages here, Flurry’s figures don’t really give us much context in terms of overall sales figures. Per usual, we’ll have to wait for Apple’s January earnings conference call to get the full scoop on the company’s typically record-setting holiday quarter.

One of the more interesting data points tabulated by Flurry focused on the distribution of activations across varying form factors. As evident from the chart below, full-size tablets and medium-sized mobile phones are increasingly losing marketshare to phablets.

But if we hone in specifically on Apple, an interesting trend emerges. Apparently iPhone users are partial to the 4.7-inch iPhone 6s while Android users prefer phablets, a category which traditionally includes devices with at least a 5.1-inch form factor.

With some analysts anticipating that Apple will experience its first drop in iPhone sales in 2016, the next few months should prove to extremely interesting. But if the recent holiday shopping season is any indication, Apple’s lineup of iOS devices, anchored by the iPhone of course, still appears to be quite vibrant.

Yoni Heisler Contributing Writer

Yoni Heisler has been writing about Apple and the tech industry at large with over 15 years of experience. A life long expert Mac user and Apple expert, his writing has appeared in Edible Apple, Network World, MacLife, Macworld UK, and TUAW.

When not analyzing the latest happenings with Apple, Yoni enjoys catching Improv shows in Chicago, playing soccer, and cultivating new TV show addictions.