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.
“Being the ‘preferred’ brand is certainly an advantage, but consumers can still change their minds,” said Parks Associates’ John Barrett. ”For example, with streaming media players, Apple is the preferred brand, but many shoppers ultimately end up getting a Roku. Last year, among younger (18-34) shoppers for this device, 34% planned to buy an Apple, and 15% planned to buy a Roku. In a later survey of actual purchases, we found 24% bought an Apple TV and 29% bought a Roku player.”
Whether or not brand preference translates into huge sales for Apple remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that Apple is the name that comes to mind for most holiday shoppers this year.