Apple Device Activations During Holiday Week Soundly Beat Samsung: Flurry Analytics

It appears Apple had a great holiday season when it came to sales of iPhone and iPad devices, while Samsung and Google did not fare so well. As per data by Flurry Analytics, Apple and Samsung together constituted 65 percent of the global device activations in the week leading up to Christmas Day and the start of Hanukkah.

Flurry Analytics reports that during the holiday period, 44 percent of phone and tablet activations were Apple's iOS devices. In the same period, 21 percent of activations were Samsung devices. The market research firm said that while Samsung's device activations were less than half those of Apple, the South Korean company saw a 1 percent increase in activations year over year.

The other six manufacturers making up the top eight are Huawei (3 percent), LG (2 percent), Amazon (2 percent), Oppo (2 percent), Xiaomi (2 percent), and Motorola (2 percent). The report notes that Huawei and LG making it the list is remarkable, as neither have a single device in the top 35 devices activated. This, the report explains, implies that Huawei and LG have a wide variety of devices to offer alongside affordable options.

A conspicuous omission from the list is Google, however, the Flurry team says the lack of popularity is not surprising, as Google only has two devices to compete with - the Pixel and Pixel XL. Notably, the Google smartphones are currently only available in a few countries, unlike Apple and Samsung devices.

The Flurry Analytics report also noted that phablets (devices with display sizes between 5 inches and 6.9 inches) are continuing to eat into the activation share of medium phone (devices with displays between 3.5 inches and 4.9 inches). While 2015's holiday week saw 27 percent of device activations to be phablets, and 54 percent to be medium phones, 2016 saw 37 percent of activations to be phablets, and 45 percent to be medium phones.

Finally, the report adds that Christmas Day was huge in terms of app installs - seeing twice as many as any other day in December. It adds, "key categories that over-indexed for installs on Christmas day were Messaging & Social, Games, Music, Media, & Entertainment, and Kids & Family apps."