By: Chris Klotzbach, Director at Flurry and Lali Kesiraju, Marketing and Analytics Manager at Flurry



With the dates of Christmas and Chanukah synced this year, smartphones were once again predominate on everyone’s wish lists. As we do every year, Flurry took a look at the most gifted smartphones and tablets around the globe this holiday season, examining phone and app activation throughout the week leading up to Christmas day and the start of Chanukah.

For every Samsung Device Activated, Apple Saw Two

Did you get a new phone this holiday season? Chances are you got an iPhone.

This year, 44% of new phone and tablet activations were Apple devices with Samsung seeing 21%. While Samsung is slowly growing in popularity throughout the holiday season, up 1% from last year, Apple devices continue to be the gift to give. Holding the third and fourth positions for activations are Huawei and LG; which is remarkable, as both manufacturers do not have an individual device within the top 35 devices activated. Their high rank is likely due to the fact that they have wide variety of devices and affordable options (hundreds of phablet and medium phones) for consumers to choose from. Perhaps not so surprisingly, 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 are the Phuture

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. Tablet device activations have stabilized and are relatively flat year over year. This indicates that users find purpose for their purchase, albeit the devices cater to more niche use.

The increasing number of phablets activated year-over-year falls inline with our assessment earlier this year that they will be the dominant form factor at the end of 2016.

Paired with your Smartphone, Apps are the Best gift to Give!

On trend with years past, Christmas Day was the biggest day for app downloads. Flurry once again tracked two times as many app installs on Christmas Day as on an average day in December. Key categories that over-indexed for installs on Christmas day were Messaging & Social, Games, Music, Media, & Entertainment, and Kids & Family apps. Mobile users were catching up with loved ones, entertaining their guess and distracting kids, all on their devices.

Flurry wishes all our developers and friends a Happy New Year! We look forward to working with you in 2017! Stay tuned for our 2016 State of Mobile in the coming weeks.