Apple captured 50% of U.S. mobile phone activations in Q4, Demand Stays Strong

Both analysts and metrics are suggesting Apple will report record-breaking iPhone sales for the just-ended December 2014 calendar quarter, and new data released today by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners reveals the Cupertino company may have set a high bar against its competitors, grabbing half of all phone activations in the United States.

One out of every two mobile phones activated in the U.S. from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 were iPhones, according to a Consumer Intelligence Research Partners survey of 500 buyers. Second-place Samsung took 26 percent of the market, with fellow South Korean firm LG in third place at 11 percent.

Apple's share was up significantly from the 28 percent the company booked in the prior quarter. CIRP attributes the jump to consumers who were waiting for the iPhone 6 release before purchasing a new device, a pattern that has repeated itself throughout the iPhone's life. 

Samsung, in comparison, dropped 5 percent sequentially. LG was up 8 percent in the same period.

"By every measure, Apple's 2014 phone launch was a success," CIRP cofounder Josh Lowitz said in a releae. "iPhones drew from loyal Apple customers, with 86% of buyers upgrading from an older iPhone. Samsung and LG saw far lower loyalty rates, with 25% of Samsung owners and 18% of LG owners who activated a phone in the quarter switching to an iPhone."

Read more on AppleInsider:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/23/apple-captured-half-of-us-mobile-phone-activations-in-q4-demand-still-at-record-high

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Press section at the Windows 10 event also looks like an Apple ad

Yesterday, “it was Microsoft’s Windows 10 event that was resplendent in aluminum MacBooks and glowing Apple logos,” Ritchie reports iMore. “Austen Allred, co-founder of Grasswire captured it on Twitter.”

Ritchie reports, “This isn’t anything new, of course. It’s been happening for years.”

A couple MacBooks at the Windows 10 Unveiling... pic.twitter.com/1oA1ILW6VN
— Austen Allred (@AustenAllred) January 21, 2015

Read more on iMore here.
http://www.imore.com/press-windows-10-event-also-looks-apple-ad

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Apple grabs 33% smartphone marketshare in South Korea

A historic record for foreign manufacturers in Samsung’s home turf.

Historically, Samsung has dominated South Korea, largely due to geographic advantages, but Apple’s gains now threaten the #1 spot. Apple is the first foreign smartphone company ever to surpass 20% marketshare in the region, taking the number 2 spot. Samsung’s marketshare fell from 60% in November to 46% and (now third-place) South Korean LG Electronics fell to 14%.

“No foreign brand has gone beyond the 20% market share mark in the history of Korea’s smartphone industry,” said Tom Kang, research director for mobile devices at Counterpoint. “It has always been dominated by the global smartphone leader, Samsung. But iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have made a difference here, denting the competition’s phablet sales.”

Apple is also seeing success in Japan, rising from ~20% to >50% marketshare on the back of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus launches. Apple also attained third place in China, behind Xiaomi and Lenovo.

Source: 9to5Mac

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iOS 8 Now Running on 68% of iPhones and iPads

According to the latest data from Apple, istribution of company's iOS 8 mobile operating continues to plod along and is now installed on 68 percent of iPhones and iPads registered to the iOS App Store.

Apple tracks the rate of iOS 8 adoption based on devices accessing the App Store with the current data being captured on January 5th, 2015.

The new iOS 8 adoption percentage jumps 8 points since late November when Apple reported that 60% of devices were using iOS 8 with incremental jumps between then and now.

Unsurprisingly, older iOS versions saw respective shares decrease over the same time period, with iOS 7 decreasing from 35 percent to 29 percent, and iOS 6 or below moving from 5 percent down to 4 percent of App Store registrants. The consistently rising share of iOS 8 users suggest new device sales are moving the needle helped along by a trickle of late upgraders.

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Apple's iOS 8 storage is far more efficient than Google's Android, Samsung's Galaxy, Microsoft Windows

"There's something about Apple that makes people lose their minds, particularly people who are journalists. The most likely explanation is that putting "Apple" in a headline is currently the most irresistible clickbait known to mankind. That, and there's no time for fact checking or any sort of basic research in today's BuzzFeed world of made up garbage." Daniel Eran Dilger of AppleInsider.

Particularly bizarre is the fact that within the last year, a widely published report on mobile device capacity found that Apple's iOS devices are leaders among comparable devices in using their storage capacity very efficiently.

Which? noted that Apple's 16GB iPhone 5c and iPhone 5s, for example, still left between 12.6GB and 12.2GB available to the user running iOS 7. That's less than Apple's latest 16GB iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models loaded with iOS 8, which the lawsuit condemns as leaving "just" 12.7 to 13GB free.

Further, among Android phones, only Google's anti-bloatware Nexus 5 left more than 12GB free. Sony's Xperia Z1, HTC's One Mini and LG's G2 flagship had between 10.3GB and 11.4GB free, while the most popular Android flagship of the year, Samsung's Galaxy S4, left just 8.56GB free to the user.

 That's right: the Galaxy S4 that Samsung advertised as having "16GB" actually left users with just slightly more available space than Apple's low end 8GB iPhone.


Read more on AppleInsider
http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/01/04/despite-lawsuit-apples-ios-8-storage-is-actually-far-more-efficient-than-googles-android-samsungs-galaxy-microsoft-windows

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