Apple is the top brand for holiday shoppers in nearly every category

Apple's brand dominance has pushed the company to the top of several lists throughout 2013, and it might also be a deciding factor for shoppers in the market for consumer electronics this holiday season. According to research from Parks Associates, Apple is the top brand in a wide range of categories, including tablets, laptops, smartphones, home networking routers, MP3 players, and streaming media devices. For the first time ever, Apple has even overtaken Dell as the preferred brand of desktop computers.



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Posted in 2013 at 10:25PM, December 05

Declining Q4 tablet shipments turn up the heat on Apple, others

Have you been wondering why there has been so much talk about smartwatches lately despite the fact that we really haven't seen anything of interest from major vendors yet? Well here's your answer: Tablet shipments from first-tier vendors are expected to decline in the holiday quarter this year. According to Digitimes' research arm, Q4 tablet shipments from top vendors like Samsung, Apple and LG are expected to grow 18.1% sequentially to 42.15 million units this year. But that seasonal bump led by Apple's completely redesigned iPad Air won't stop shipments from dipping 2.5% on-year, according to the report. As the high-margin, high-end smartphone market continues to slow and tablet sales decelerate as well, consumer electronics companies need to look elsewhere if they hope to maintain solid growth. That "elsewhere," it would seem, is smartwatches. Whether or not they'll take off remains to be seen but with Apple, Google and others currently working on new offerings, 2014 could be the year we find out.

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Posted in 2013 at 10:25PM, November 05