Apple Wins Race for Global Holiday Sales

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) ability to beat back the rise of Samsung and of Google Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android operating system was on full display as new research showed it dominated holiday sales. The power of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus as the top smartphones based on consumer demand helped the company hold a huge market share. Apple products were the most popular tech gifts of 2014, with millions of new devices activated on Christmas Day.

According to research firm Flurry:

It’s clear that Santa is no longer into cookies — he prefers Apples. It was a banner Christmas for the Apple, the company that started the mobile revolution with the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007. Seven years later, Apple accounted for 51% of the new device activations worldwide Flurry recognized in the week leading up to and including Christmas Day (December 19th – 25th). Samsung held the #2 position with 18% of new device activations, and Microsoft (Nokia) rounded out the top three with 5.8% share for mostly Lumia devices. After the top three manufacturers, the device market becomes increasingly fragmented with only Sony and LG commanding more than one percent share of new activations on Christmas Day. Up-and-comers Xiaomi, Huawei, and HTC all had less than one percent share on Christmas Day. One reason is surely their popularity in Asian markets where December 25th is not the biggest gift-giving day of the year.

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Anecdotal evidence, and other research from firms that measure smartphone and app market share, show that Apple has done poorly in recent quarters, often bested by Samsung. However, new Samsung smartphones and tablets have not been the hits they were for the past several years. The problem has eroded Samsung’s smartphone profits.

The data also show the extent to which Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) continues to fail in the smartphone and app markets. The large software company hoped its purchase of Nokia and release of its own tablets would help its cause. That has not happened.

The next step in the proof of Apple’s success is when it releases earnings, which should be spectacular.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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