Apple Tops Holiday Device Activation Numbers

New data shows that Apple won the 2017 smartphone holiday season, with iPhones and iPads making up 44 percent of devices activated from December 19 to December 25.

“Similar to last year, 44 percent of new phone and tablet activations were Apple devices,” Flurry Analytics wrote in a blog post. “While Samsung dominates global market share, they fell short as the gift of choice during the holiday season, with only 26 percent of activated devices in the lead up to Christmas. Samsung’s activation rate is up 5 percent from the 2016 holiday season, which can likely be attributed to the 2017 introduction of the Galaxy S8 after the late 2016 recall of their malfunctioning Note devices.”

The analytics company, which says its data is used by over 1 million mobile apps across 2.1 billion devices, captures all other phone and tablet makers in the single digits, with Huawei, Xiaomi, Motorola, LG, Oppo and Vivo each falling between 5 percent and 2 percent.

And while the new iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X launched this year to much fanfare – making up close to a third of all new activations this holiday season – Flurry revealed that Apple is still seeing significant sales from their older model smartphones.

“This is largely attributed to the affordability of the older models and availability in markets outside of the U.S.,” the company wrote. “[The] iPhone 7 and 6 take the top two spots, with the X coming in a close third. The prominence of the iPhone 6 is particularly interesting, as Apple only relaunched that model to resellers in select international markets in the spring of 2017. It’s apparent that the consumer concern for cost is still significant, as the iPhone 6 is often marketed as the most affordable option in the regions where it is available.”

The iPhone 7 accounted for the most activations at 15.1 percent, followed by the iPhone 6 at 14.9 percent and the iPhone X at 14.7 percent. The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus models were beat out by the iPhone 6s and iPhone 7 Plus, which represented 8.1 percent and 8.7 percent of activations.