New York, Dec 29 (IANS): The holiday season was a big hit for Apple's iPhone, as Yahoo-owned research firm Flurry revealed that during the critical shopping period between December 19 to 25, Apple's iPhone and iPad accounted for 44 per cent of all mobile activations much higher than Samsung.

The research firm also revealed that Samsung saw its many devices combine to account for 21 per cent of all activations during the period, while Huawei was in third place with three per cent market share, followed by several other manufacturers, including LG and Amazon, at two per cent share each.

According to a report in the Fortune on Thursday, Apple appears to be the single leader during the last week of holiday shopping as the data shared by the Flurry gives a picture from December 19 only, therefore not offering any clear idea about the rest of the holiday shopping season.

Last year, Apple's devices accounted for 49.1 per cent of all activations during the same period while Samsung last year accounted for 19.8 per cent of all activations.

"Part of Apple's troubles in 2016 might have been a shift in how consumers are spending money on new mobile devices. Between December 19 and 25, full-size tablets like the iPad Pro or iPad Air 2 only accounted for 9 per cent of all mobile device purchases. In 2013, their share of sales stood at 17 per cent," the report added.

"Phablets continue to increase their holiday share, at the detriment of the medium phone. Tablet device activations have stabilised and are relatively flat year over year. This indicates that users find purpose for their purchase, albeit the devices cater to more niche use," the research firm noted.

According to Flurry, Google could not crack into the list of top mobile device manufacturers this year.