If you are considering upgrading your smartphone in the near future, it might be prudent to wait just a few more weeks. You just need to type the words “smartphone” and “Black Friday” into any search engine to see how aggressively the mobile industry attacks the biggest sales weekend of the year. Holding off on your upgrade until November 29 will undoubtedly save you a significant chunk of change or allow you to get a much higher spec device for your dollar.Note: Forbes is already reporting some early Black Friday deals on Samsung devices with savings of upwards of $200 on Galaxy Note 10 and Galaxy S10 devices on specific networks. While it might be tempting to jump in now, if your old handset can see you through the rest of the month, competition on those deals will almost certainly heat up and throw some more preferable deals your way soon.Smartphones – The Gift that Keeps GivingBlack Friday and Cyber Monday sales have always been important to smartphone manufacturers and mobile networks. In 2018, more than 375 million new devices found their way into the hands of consumers in the last three months of the year. The Black Friday/Cyber Monday holiday marketing push would have been responsible for an incredible number of these sales.Further Reading:‘Tis The Season To Preload Your App.Smartphones are, of course, an incredibly popular holiday gift. Whether they are being gifted as a first device to pre-teen eager to get their hands on the latest device or to an older relative keeping them closely connected to their friends, family and a whole host of digital services, the smartphone is a much more personal and therefore cherished gift than the average gift wrapped consumer electronic device. A smartphone will be the one gift that’s not cast aside or left to gather dust after just a few weeks. In fact, I would suggest that a gifted smartphone will be the one holiday gift in 2019 that is still in daily use in the run-up to the holidays in 2020 and even the following year.The Open Market – A Gift for CompetitionIt’s never been easier to gift a smartphone with department stores and supermarkets selling smartphones and PAYG SIM cards alongside toasters and televisions, and fresh fruit and vegetables. This open market has provided a significant boon to some more recent entrants to the smartphone market with the likes of Huawei and Xiaomi fighting for market share in mature markets like the US and EU and in some cases winning against more established brands.Further Reading: Chinese OEMs Make Inroads into Europe.While we are considering the open marketplace, it would be foolish to ignore online markets like Amazon. According to Counterpoint Research, in the second quarter of 2018, Amazon.com accounted for 23 percent of all smartphone sales via online channels. Amazon is, of course, a significant player in the globalization of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. While Amazon doesn't typically break down their category sales, you can expect their Prime offering combined with significant Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions will move a significant number of smartphones in 2019.Mobile CommerceThe smartphone itself is a significant player in the Black Friday/Cyber Monday story. More than half of all online traffic on Cyber Monday in 2018 (the biggest online sales day to date with more than $7.9 billion spent) came from a mobile device. You have to wonder how many people purchased a new smartphone from their smartphone.With this in mind, it’s incredibly important for retailers to make sure their mobile marketing strategy is optimized for the extended Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales period.Further Reading: Why You Need to Get Your Retail App on Smartphones Before the Holidays.Big Smartphone Sales Create Big Opportunities for App DevelopersOf course, it’s not just smartphone manufacturers and mobile networks that benefit from big smartphone sales over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend. This is an amazing time of year creates an enormous opportunity for mobile app developers to place their apps in front of the right people at the right time.Savvy app developers don’t rely on the uncertainties of the Google Play store to acquire new users and build customer lifetime value. They work with Digital Turbine to position their apps on the devices that are so eagerly snapped up at this time of the year.Further Reading: App Distribution: Alternative Routes to Market for Android Developers.An app placed on a device in time for Black Friday or Cyber Monday demands visibility and almost guarantees engagement over the holiday period. If a pre-loaded app resonates with the new device user, this creates a golden opportunity to drive revenue via in-app purchases, eCommerce, or advertising. It also presents an opportunity for app developers to use their base on their users’ devices to promote further apps from their portfolio.Further Reading:Top Game Developer Enjoys 7x Lift in Conversion Rates with SingleTap™ Installs.Contact us to learn more about how pre-loading can help you optimize your opportunity from the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales event. Our app marketing experts will call you straight back.
