Galaxy and iPhone to top smartphone holiday sales
Apple's long-awaited iPhone 4S and Samsung Electronics' fresh, broad offering are likely to stand out in this holiday season's smartphone sales which will otherwise be clouded by global economic uncertainty.
Apple, which lost its position as the world's largest smartphone maker to Samsung last quarter, could regain top spot as consumers rush to buy the latest iPhone after waiting 16 months since the previous model went on sale.
Like millions elsewhere, 36-year-old Vanessa Pigeon last week took up an offer from her telecom operator and replaced her aging Blackberry with the latest iPhone.
"I liked the design and I wanted to change for a long time," said Pigeon, a recruitment official in Paris. Read more...
Black Friday E-Commerce Spending Up 26 Percent To A Record $816M; Amazon Most Visited Retailer
As we heard on Saturday, IBM reported a 24 percent increase in online sales for Black Friday this year. ComScore is announcing even stronger results for e-commerce, with Black Friday seeing $816 million in online sales, making it the heaviest online spending day to date in 2011 and representing a 26 percent increase versus Black Friday 2010 ($648 million spent).
That’s an impressive jump considering the 2009 to 2010 increase in Black Friday spending was only 9 percent. Thanksgiving Day saw an 18 percent increase in online spending to $479 million. U.S. consumers have spent $12.7 billion already in the first 25 days of the November to December 2011 holiday season, up 15 percent from the corresponding days last year. Read more...