iOS and Android Activations and App Downloads Surge on Christmas Day 2011
Christmas Day proved, once again, to be the biggest day for iOS and Android app downloads, according to Flurry. Dec. 25, 2011, was also a record-breaking day for iOS and Android device activations.
According to Flurry, Apple’s App Store is on pace to exceed 10 billion downloads, which would double the total from 2008, 2009 and 2010. The Android Market was on pace to reach more than 10 billion cumulative downloads in December.
On Christmas Day, there were 6.8 million new iOS and Android device activations, a 353 percent jump from the average daily activations of 1.5 million observed Dec. 1-20, according to Flurry.
“Compared to Christmas Day 2010, the previous single-day record, with 2.8 million device activations, Christmas 2011 grew by more than 140%,” Flurry notes in its blog post.
It’s logical to expect with the large number of new activations that app downloads would follow suit – and that’s exactly what was observed.
According to Flurry, there were 242 million new iOS and Android app downloads on Christmas Day 2011, up 125 percent from the 108 million average app downloads Dec. 1-20. The mark observed on Christmas Day was more than double any other day in the history of iOS and Android devices, except Dec. 24. There were about 150 million new app downloads on Christmas Eve.
From Christmas through New Year’s Day, Flurry anticipated approximately 1 billion total app downloads.
Flurry also took a look at the app downloads by hour on Christmas Day vs. the average December day. It found that the prime time for app downloads during Dec. 1-20 was 7-10 p.m. (time zones were normalized). The prime time on Christmas Day was 7-9 p.m. Between 11 a.m. and 11 p.m., more than 175 million apps were downloaded, according to Flurry.
A separate report from comScore found that an average of 44.9 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used downloaded apps on their mobile devices during the three months ending in November.
Meanwhile, according to investment research firm Morgan Keenan, Amazon’s Fire tablet likely sold 4 million-5 million units during the holiday season, “which probably means maybe 1-2 million cannibalized iPad sales at most.”
Sources:
http://blog.flurry.com/bid/79682/iOS-Android-Shatter-Records-on-Christmas-Day
http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/amazon-kindle-fire-burns-up-ipad-sales-over-holidays-20257/
