During the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, users downloaded more than 1 billion apps for the first time ever in a week-long period. Across iOS and Android, over 1.2 billion apps were downloaded, according to a new report by Flurry Analytics. That was a 60% increase over early December.
The holiday season typically sees a surge in mobile application downloads, especially once Christmas Day arrives and countless consumers all over the world unwrap their new Android devices, iPhones, iPads and iPods. In a true testament to the continued proliferation of these devices, this year’s holiday spike in app downloads was a one for the record books, according to Flurry’s data.
The vast majority of downloads were seen in the United States and several other Western countries made the top ten. In second place was China, which saw 99 million downloads. That sounds like a lot, but it’s relatively small compared to China’s overall installed base, as the report pointed out. It’s the second biggest app market in the world, but only saw about one fifth of downloads the week after Christmas, which of course is not as widely celebrated in China.
Apple hasn’t released numbers, but there’s little doubt that items like iPads, iPhones and the iPod Touch did quite well this holiday season, and for those who already own such devices an iTunes Store gift card made for a no-brainer of a present. Amazon’s own Kindle Fire, which has access to a limited version of the Android Marketplace, was that company’s top-selling and most frequently gifted item this holiday season as well.
The 1 billion weekly downloads threshold may be a new one, but it’s one that Flurry expects to see continue well into 2012. There’s very little reason to doubt that prediction, as smartphones and tablets continue to pick up steam in the marketplace and new devices from Apple, Amazon and Android handset manufacturers are expected to drop throughout the year, in many cases at lower price points.
