Deeper discounts push Google Pixel ahead of iPhone 7 during Black Friday weekend

Now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are wrapped, we’re starting to see some data roll in that shows the most popular purchases of the weekend. New data from Localytics shows that, in terms of smartphones, the Google Pixel beat out the iPhone 7 as the most popular purchase this weekend, but it’s not as simple as that…

The data shows that the Google Pixel saw the biggest spike during Black Friday weekend, with activations up 112 percent from their normal rate. Meanwhile, the Samsung Galaxy S7 saw its activations rise 36 percent compared to the normal rate, while the 9.7-inch iPad Pro and iPad mini 2 increased by 24 percent and 19 percent, respectively. At the bottom of the list is the iPhone 7, which saw a 13 percent bump in sales over Black Friday weekend.

Furthermore, the data shows the performance of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in comparison to the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus during last year’s Black Friday weekend. During Black Friday and Cyber Monday last year, the iPhone 6s saw a 36 percent increase in activations, while the iPhone 6s Plus bumped 29 percent. This year, the iPhone 7 Plus accounted for around 1 percent of the iPhone 7’s total 13 percent increase.

The data was collected from apps and services that use the Localytics SDK, which the firm says is over 37,000 apps and web apps. That makes for 120 billion data points per month and 2.7 billion devices in total.

Now, there are several things to keep in mind with this information. This data is referring to total increase during the shopping weekend, so the sales prior to the weekend very much affect the weekend increase. For instance, the iPhone 7 likely had higher sales prior to the holiday weekend than the Google Pixel did. Thus, the larger holiday bump for the Google Pixel doesn’t necessarily mean that it sold more units in total. Instead, it likely brought Pixel sales closer to iPhone 7 sales.

There were also deeper discounts for potential Google Pixel customers than iPhone 7 customers. Verizon, for instance, was offering a notable discount on the Pixel, while Apple itself wasn’t offering any promotion for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. For the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, Apple was simply offering a $50 gift card with purchase.

Additionally, the iPhone 7 is still somewhat hard to come by in terms of supply, especially with the larger Plus variant. Supply constraints likely played a role in Black Friday weekend sales. Most people that truly wanted an iPhone 7 likely bought in September, not holding out for any mediocre Black Friday “sales” and risking facing supply constraints.

Those qualms don’t necessarily mean that this isn’t good news for Google, though. The Pixel is the company’s way of betting big on hardware and it’s certainly encouraging to see such a spike in sales.

Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean the Pixel is overtaking the iPhone in terms of sales.