Many consumers spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, learning the ins and outs of new devices. Based on recent research from Flurry, the majority were likely using Apple devices.
Looking at the week leading up to and through Christmas, the mobile analytics firm found that Apple accounted for 51.3% of device activations between December 19 and 25, 2014. No. 2 Samsung didn’t even grab a 20% share, at 17.7%, followed by Nokia (5.8%), Sony (1.6%) and LG (1.4%) devices.
At least partly due to the new larger-screen iPhone 6 Plus, Flurry found that phablets exploded in device activation share at the expense of every other form.
Phablet devices activated worldwide during the week of Christmas accounted for 13% of total activations—up 225% year over year. Phablets especially took share away from full-size tablets—similar, but often not as mobile—which saw their percentage of activations drop nearly 35.3%. Despite the phablet’s popularity, medium phones still accounted for the largest share of total activations, dropping just 1 percentage point.
Phablets will continue to grab share of the smart-device market in the coming years. In fact, International Data Corporation (IDC) figures from September 2014 estimated that the number of global shipments of phablets—smartphones with screen sizes from 5.5 inches to less than 7.0 inches—would pass tablets shipped worldwide in 2015 for the first time, with respective totals of 318.4 million and 254.7 million. But phablets won’t surpass their smaller-screen rivals any time soon. While IDC expected phablet shipments worldwide to near 600 million by 2018, this was still less than half the nearly 1.25 billion forecast for regular smartphones.