Google Pixel win the battle against iPhone 7 during Black Friday weekend

Fariha Khan
December 1, 2016
1,032

As Black Friday and Cyber Monday wrap up, we have got some interesting data that tells about the most popular purchases of the Black Friday weekend. With regard to smartphones, the Google Pixel has won the battle against the iPhone 7. But there is more to this story…

With sales up 112% from their normal rate, the Google Pixel saw the biggest spike during Black Friday weekend. The Samsung Galaxy S7, on the other hand, saw its sales rise 36% compared to the normal rate. The 9.7-inch iPad Pro and iPad mini 2 increased by 24% and 19 percent, respectively. At the bottom of the list is the iPhone 7, which saw a 13% crash in sales during the period.

The data also shows the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus’ performance compared to the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus during last year’s Black Friday weekend. Last year, the iPhone 6s saw a 36% rise in sales, while the iPhone 6s Plus bumped 29%. This year, the iPhone 7 Plus accounted for around 1% of the iPhone 7’s total 13% rise.

We got the information from apps and services that use the Localytics SDK, which the company says is more than 37,000 apps and web apps. That makes for 120 billion data points on a monthly basis and 2.7 billion devices overall.

A number of things are to be considered regarding this information. This data is referring to the overall rise during the Black Friday weekend. It means that the sales before that affect the Black Friday weekend rise. For example, the iPhone 7 probably had higher sales before the holiday weekend compared to the Google Pixel. So the big holiday bump for the Google Pixel doesn’t essentially imply that it sold additional units on the whole. In fact, perhaps it brought the sale of the Pixel closer to iPhone 7 sales.

There were more discounts for potential Google Pixel users compared to iPhone 7 users. Like Verizon was offering a great discount on the Pixel, while Apple wasn’t offering any promotion for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus on its own. In the same way, for the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, the company just offered a $50 gift card that you could get with purchase.

Other than that, the iPhone 7 is still hard to come by with regard to supply particularly with the larger Plus alternate. Supply limitations possibly played a part in Black Friday weekend sales.

Those uncertainties don’t essentially mean that this isn’t good news for Google. The Pixel is Google’s way of betting big on hardware and it’s surely heartening to see such a spike in such Black Friday weekend sales.