Numbers during the holiday period are important for a lot of brands since this is the time when people usually buy gifts for their loved ones and themselves as well. Gadgets are an especially busy sector during this gift-giving season. The good news for Google is that their newest devices, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL outperformed the heavily marketed iPhone X over the Christmas weekend. The bad news for Android is that 6 out of the 10 best performing in terms of device activations are still Apple products.
Localytics looked at the new device activations over the Christmas weekend to determine which were the best performing smartphones or tablets. Take note that these aren’t actual sales so the numbers might differ when the brands release their sales numbers within the next few weeks. But based on the data, the Pixel 2 and the Pixel 2 XL had the largest lift in new activations with 38.61% and 31.41% respectively. The Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and the Galaxy S8 were very distant 9th and 10th with 9.5% and 2.78% respectively. And in between that were the various Apple devices like the iPhone X, iPhone 8, etc.
The performance of the two Pixel devices, aside from the fact that they’re pretty good, can also be attributed to various promotions from partners like Verizon, Best Buy, etc. Google themselves opened a $100 Fi service credit when you activate any of the Pixel smartphones. During the Thanksgiving season, Samsung saw good performances from its flagship devices but this time around, it wasn’t as great, despite having lots of similar deals from partners.
Despite the strong performance of the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2XL during the Christmas weekend, there is a still a huge network of iPhone users globally, so the “war” is still ongoing.
SOURCE: Localytics
