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Apple dominated mobile devices activated this Christmas with 51% share

New stats showing devices activated during the week of Christmas reveal that Apple commanded the lion's share of new mobile purchases, accounting for more than half of all device activations by manufacturer.

Apple devices represented a whopping 51.3 percent of activations tracked by mobile analytics firm Flurry, as revealed in new data published on Monday. The stats were collected from Dec. 19 through Christmas Day.

Coming in distant second was Apple's chief rival, Samsung, which accounted for 17.7 percent of activations last week. Rounding out the top five were Nokia (5.8 percent), Sony (1.6 percent), and LG (1.4 percent).

"While, the holidays in general and Christmas in particular are not the sole indicator of the smartphone market share and trends, it is safe to say that Apple's newly released iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have had a blockbuster holiday season, despite a lackluster holiday season for the consumer electronics industry," Flurry vice president of analytics and marketing Jarah Euston said in the company's blog post.

Unsurprisingly, Apple's new flagship iPhone 6 was the top device activated for Christmas, as tracked by the research firm. The iPhone 6 Plus was also one of the top five devices, though "phablets" accounted for just 13 percent of new device activations.

Flurry's stats also show that the most popular form factor for Christmas was "medium phones," accounting for 64 percent of total activations. Presumably it categorizes the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 as a "medium" sized phone, though the report did not define how it determines each category.

Full-size tablets represented 11 percent of activations, splitting evenly with small-size tablets. Apple competes in both markets with the iPad Air and iPad mini.

Finally, Flurry also found that application installs surged 150 percent on Christmas Day, when compared to the average number of daily installations from Dec. 1 through 21. Euston categorized this performance as "remarkable," considering the maturity of the U.S. market.

The December frame will represent the first full quarter for sales of Apple's new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, and investors expect that Apple will have a blockbuster holiday season. Results for the December quarter will be revealed in late January.