Flurry: Record smartphone activations over the holidays

By Geoff Duncan December 31, 2011

Flurry AppDownloads Xmas vs Dec 2011 — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Everybody knows consumers are embracing smartphones with seemingly boundless enthusiasm, and new figures from Flurry Analytics give some insight into just how popular they’ve been during the end-of-year gift-giving season. Flurry says they can detect almost 100 percent of new iOS and Android devices activated every day, thanks to their analytics tools being included in so many popular applications and services. Flurry found that new device activations for the first 20 days of December held relatively steady, with between 1.3 and 1.8 million new iOS and Android devices coming online every day—an average of 1.5 million a day. However, on Christmas day that number shot up to 6.8 million new devices, an increase of 353 percent.

According to Flurry, that’s a new record for single-day new device activations. The previous top day had been Christmas 2010, which had seen 2.8 million device activations—meaning Christmas 2011 saw a 140 percent increase in new devices coming online.

Flurry also saw app downloads spike on Christmas Day. For the first 20 days of December, Flurry says an average of 108 million apps were downloaded per day. On Christmas day, that number surged to 242 million apps, an increase of 125 percent. Although the surge is not at the same leve as the 353 percent increase in new device activations, it does represent a figure that’s more than double Flurry’s the previous single day record for app downloads—with the sole exception of December 24, which saw roughly 150 million app downloads.

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Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

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