It was a massive season for mobile, according to the latest insight from analytics firm Flurry. Underscoring just how many people purchased and receiving mobile devices during the holidays, Flurry revealed Tuesday that iOS and Android activations exploded by a record-breaking 353% on Christmas Day
“With record-breaking mobile growth for both Apple and Google this year, Flurry has been anticipating an equally record-breaking Christmas,” writes Peter Farago on the Flurry Blog. “In 2011, Apple’s App Store is on pace to exceed 10 billion downloads, which will double the cumulative number of downloads earned across 2008, 2009 and 2010. The Android Market also set records, more than tripling its life-to-date downloads of 3 billion, reached in May 2011, to now over 10 billion cumulative downloads reached this December.”
All told, during the first 20 days of December, mobile device activations were around 1.5 million each day. On Dec. 25, that number popped to a staggering 6.8 million new iOS and Android activations.
With more than 140,000 apps using Flurry Analytics, Flurry detects roughly 100% of all new iOS and Android devices activated each day. The company regularly triangulates its device coverage with publicly announced figures from Google and Apple.
Obviously joining the surge in device activation was app downloads. According to Flurry, nearly a quarter of a billion downloads occurred on Christmas Day 2011, which is more than double any other day in the history of iOS and Android devices, except December 24, which delivered roughly 150 million downloads.
As observed in 2010, Flurry expects elevated download levels from Christmas through New Year’s Day. Over this period, we anticipate approximately 1 billion total downloads.
To read the full report from Flurry, click here.
