iOS and Android Activations Reach An All-Time High on Christmas Day - Up 353%

According to analytics from Flurry, devices running Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android platform ended up seeing a huge spike in activations on Chrismas day, growing 353% from average totals earlier in December. In the first 20 days of December, mobile device activations tracked by analytics firm Flurry were around 1.5 million ech day. On December 25th, the firm identified 6.8 million new iOS and Android activations – representing a 353% growth.


The previous single-day record tracked by the company was Christmas day last year (2010), when there were 2.8 million device activations. This leaves Christmas 2011 as the new record-holder for the biggest activation day, which saw a growth of more than 140%. Flurry’s statistics come from the company’s analytics software, which is found on more than 140,000 applications. Vice president of marketing with Flurry, Peter Farago, claimed his that his company’s statistics detect “roughly” 100% of new iOS and Android devices activated each day.

Application downloads on both iOS and Android also ended up growing by 125% on Christmas Day, reaching 242 million. In the first 20 days of December, downloads averaged 108 million. The statistics show Apple’s App Store is currently on pace to exceed 10 billion application downloads by the end of 2011. This would be doubling the cumulative number of downloads that came in 2008, 2009, and 2010 combined. Google’s Android Market also had a great year in 2011. As of May 2011, it had 3 billion cumulative application downloads but that number is also expected to reach 10 billion by the end of the year.

It was previously reported by Flurry that iOS applications are said to rake in about 300% more revenue than their Android counterparts. The statistics also showed that for every dollar generated by an iOS application, a corresponding 24 cents were brought in by an Android application. As for activations, Google’s Vice President, Andy Rubin, mentioned that new Android devices are being activated at a rate of 700,000 units per day. Apple has currently not revealed daily iOS activations in over a year but it did announce that more than 250 million iOS devices had been sold to date in its last quarter earnings conference call.

Were you one of the many who were a part of these statistics? How do you feel about the results from Flurry’s statistics? Share any thoughts and opinions below!