As we’re stepping into New Year 2015 tomorrow, holiday shoppers are still pampering themselves with new smartphones. As you could probably guess, Apple iPhone, was the most popular gift choice over Christmas week. Based on new device activations, Flurry Analytics concluded that Apple dominated the top-5 manufacturers, devouring a mind-boggling 51.3%, follows by Samsung (17.7%), Nokia (5.8%), Sony (1.6%) and LG (1.4%).

That’s almost three Apple devices were activated for every Samsung device activated over the Christmas holiday, measured from 19-25 December. Of course, that was not a fair representation considering Xiaomi, HTC, Huawei were not taken into the measurement. But since the device activations concentrated within U.S. only, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see why Apple was the champion by miles from its nearest competitor.

 

The long queue of people fighting tooth and nail for a piece of iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus pretty much proved why Samsung top executives were having cold sweat over the company’s performance. Samsung bottom line could be worse next year if Xiaomi continues to eat into their already shrinking pie. In order to win the battle, Samsung has to create a more premium phone to fight Apple, while introduces dirt cheap phone to corner Xiaomi.

In reality, Samsung couldn’t possibly unleash any more premium phone that it had not already done so. That would leave it with no other choice but to throw crazy prices as low as Xiaomi phones, sacrificing the already razor-thin margin. Perhaps Samsung should start selling cheap phones via online, similar to Xiaomi business model. But there’s a good news behind Samsung’s shrinking market share in 2014.

According to American Customer Satisfaction Index 2014, Samsung owners are actually happier than iPhone owners. The study shows Samsung scored 81-points, while Apple only managed a 79-points. While the difference is not much, it was a pretty nice victory considering Samsung only got 76-points last year. That’s a 5-points improvement from 2013 to 2014 for Samsung, while Apple lost 2-points from 2013’s score of 81-points.

But why did Apple lose its throne to Samsung this year? Well, some suggested it could be the large 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus releases that caused iPhone-5 owners unhappy about the brand. It could probably due to iPhone 6 Plus “BendGate” and “HairGate” naughty scandals. Perhaps the Apple’s screw-ups were more glaring than Samsung’s successful Note 4 and feature-rich Galaxy S5. Whatever the reasons, Samsung owners are the happiest in 2014.

 

Other Articles That May Interest You …

• Another Copycat Product – Xiaomi Macbook Air?
• One More (Secret) Thing … Apple iOS 8 Allows Wireless Charging Using MicroWave
• Apple Pay, iPhone 6 & Watch – Welcome To The Party, But You’re Late
• Uh-oh, Apple’s In Trouble – Samsung Releases Note 4, Note Edge & Virtual Reality Gear
• Here’s Proof That Apple Deliberately Slow Down Its Old Models, Before A New Release
• Apple Has More Cash Than Malaysia, France & Dozens Other Countries
• Samsung’s New S5 – Everything You Need To Know
• Here’s How To Tell If You’re A Samsung or Apple Fan

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December 31st, 2014 by financetwitter

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