Record Number of Mobile Devices Activated Christmas Day
According to a report from Flurry, Christmas Day marked the most iOS and Android device activations than any other day in history. It is estimated that over 17 million new smartphones and tablets were activated Christmas Day. Compared to the rest of December, iOS and Android activations soared 332 percent on Christmas Day. Every other day in December saw an average of about four million activated devices. In 2011, there were only 6.8 million devices activated on Christmas Day. Even more interesting is the fact that people think of tablets as a gift rather than an every day expense. Throughout December 80 percent of activated iOS and Android devices were smartphones, however, on Christmas Day, tablets shot up to claim 51 percent of activated devices.
Samsung Wants To Dominate Mobile in 2013
As reported in The Korea Times, Samsung Electronics has high hopes for 2013. The Korean tech giant says that it expects 2013 to be the year “when it separates itself from bitter rival Apple.” Samsung believes that it will dominate the market by selling at least 20 percent more mobile phones than it did in 2012. As the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer, it isn’t unreasonable to think that Samsung could potentially ship 510 million phones in the next twelve months.
Mac Minis Might Be Manufactured In USA
According to supply chain sources speaking to Digitimes, Apple might be considering production of Mac Minis to be manufactured in the U.S. If things go as planned, Apple will manufacture Mac Minis in the U.S. by partnering with Foxconn. It is estimated that Foxconn already has an estimated 15 operating bases in the U.S. with two of those located in California and Texas. The move makes sense for Apple’s Mac Minis considering that they don’t have any display components, which would cut manufacturing plant costs as well as shipping costs. In addition, Mac Minis have a considerably low shipping volume around 1.4 million units total for 2012.
Windows Phone Apps
For Microsoft’s mobile business, 2012 proved to be a very important year for the company although it probably wasn’t as successful as the company had hoped. Microsoft’s biggest challenge wasn’t getting people to buy their phones, but getting developers to write apps for their platform. In 2012, Microsoft certified and published over 75,000 new apps and games – that’s roughly double the amount of apps that were available last year. Developers pushed over 30,000 updates throughout the year on the Microsoft OS. Microsoft claims that the average Windows Phone user has downloaded 54 apps.
Todd Brix, Microsoft’s Senior Director for Windows Marketplace said that the company has improved app discoverability by bringing some of Bing’s search features to its store. Brix stated that last year’s focus was to establish “a new scalable platform on the phone and in the cloud upon which we can better achieve our mission: to provide a confident, convenient, and customized app experience for our customers across the world…” The Microsoft Senior noted that even though most developers are still working on their Windows Phone 8 apps, developers’ revenue has already spiked up to 40% in the last 30 days since the Windows Phone 8 SDK release and he only expects that number to grow.
