PC OEMs failed to take advantage of Black Friday, except Samsung

While most sectors took advantage of the Black Friday sales rush and slashed prices in an attempt to leverage people's wallets from their pockets, one analyst says that PC OEMs missed a big chance to boost Ultrabook sales.
According to Sterne Agee analyst Vijay Rakesh, there were very few Ultrabook promotions,

with most selling at the $699-plus level.
Rakesh wrote in an email: "We believe the lack of promotional activity might be a drag on the Win8 and PC ecosystem and a drag on PC chip suppliers [Intel and AMD] looking to clear out inventories into the New Year 2013."
Rakesh did see PC OEMs offering discounts for notebooks, but primarily for low-end $269 to $449 devices.
While PC OEMs failed to take advantage of Black Friday, Rakesh says that smartphone makers embraced the day, with Samsung coming out as a big winner. Sprint and Amazon ran sales of the Galaxy S III, cutting prices down to $49 to $59, compared to the usual $199 for the handset with a 2-year contract.
This, according to Rakesh, could mean at least a million extra Galaxy S III handsets sold this quarter, which will not only benefit Samsung, but also key component suppliers such as Qualcomm, NXP Semiconductors, and RF Micro Devices.
According to a report released by market research firm Strategy Analytics, Samsung ousted Apple from the smartphone top-spot, selling 18 million Galaxy S III handsets during the third quarter, compared to only 16.2 million iPhone 4S handsets.