Apple saw record sales this holiday season, 12 times the amount of activations on Christmas Day

Jake Smith

Apple saw record-setting sales this holiday season, according to Localytics. So well, that 12.5 times more iOS devices were activated over Christmas than past weekends. For comparison sake: there were 21 times more iPods compared to 14 times more iPhones. The iPods were most likely gifted to younger children who do not yet have a cell phone. At any rate… there were many people enjoying iOS devices on Christmas Day.

Apple is said to have another record setting quarter after a very successful fiscal Q4 for the company. The last earnings report said Apple claimed $28.27 billion in revenue and saw record-setting Mac and iPhone sales. The holiday quarter is expected to be even better.

Apple is set to have its best year ever in its App Store with approximately 10 billion downloads in 2011, along with a record-setting holiday season. That estimate doubles collective downloads from the three years prior, according to research firm Flurry. The report noted the Android Market hit 10 billion cumulative downloads in December, up from 3 billion total downloads in May 2011.

Flurry also backs up Localytics claim and said Christmas Day 2011s activations crushed Christmas Day 2010s by almost 2.5 times. This year saw 6.8 million iOS and Android device activations, and last year saw 2.8 million device activations. That’s a 140 percent growth. We are looking forward to hearing what Apple has to say in late January.

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AT&T still commands a (shrinking) majority of U.S. iPhone base, says Localytics

Seth Weintraub

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According to Localytics, AT&T continues to be the dominant iPhone carrier in the US, even with the Verizon entering the market strongly last year, grabbing 40% of the users in half the time.

As the 4S was launched on Sprint as well with truly unlimited data plans, one would have thought more of AT&T’s marketshare would have been diminished.  However, it appears that sprint is taking more away from Verizon.

Sprint’s share of the 4S market now stands at 12% according to the figures.  AT&T, though coverage is spotty in urban areas like New York and San Francisco, does have a significant speed advantage over Sprint and Verizon’s 3G as well as the ability to talk and use data at the same time.

Looking at iPhone 4 distribution as a comparison, Sprint seems to have eroded more of Verizon’s market share than AT&T’s – of the previous-generation handset, 60% are on AT&T versus 40% on Verizon.

A likely driver for these differences is the fact that AT&T can mine its existing base of iPhone users. Because all Verizon iPhone users are in the first year of their wireless contract, the cost of upgrading will be high. However, many longer-term AT&T users, especially those holding iPhone 3GS and earlier devices, are off-contract or nearing the end of their contract. AT&T has been aggressively leveraging the iPhone 4S to sign these customers to new two-year contracts, and the data in this study suggests that tactic may be working.

That data strongly lines up with our poll which we’ve been tracking since before the iPhone 4S launch…

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Localytics: Verizon claiming almost a third of all US iPhone 4s

Seth Weintraub

Analytics company Localytics today published a report on the rise of the Verizon iPhone.  In the July month, it accounted for 32% of all iPhone 4s purchased (AT&T is still selling iPhone3GS, and has the US exclusive on the $49 iPhone).  That’s with AT&T’s 8-month head start.

It’s not all gravy for Verizon.  Localytics surmises that the biggest selling point to US users was the ‘unlimited’ data plans…which end today.

Why the recent uptick in Verizon adoption? One reason may be Verizon’s unlimited data plan, which they are scheduled to do away with on July 7th. AT&T officially discontinued its unlimited data plan in mid-2010, although existing customers were allowed to keep their plan as long as they remained AT&T customers. We’ll continue tracking the shift in iPhone 4 market share to see if Verizon loses momentum post-unlimited-data.

It will be interesting to see the split on iPhone 5 when all carriers (including Sprint T-Mobile and others?) are equally pitted against each other. Read more