History has made when more than 1.2bn apps were downloaded on to mobile phones and tablet devices during Christmas week, according to a new study from Flurry, the mobile analytics company. This is the first time that more than a billion app downloads have been recorded in a single week.
An estimated 20m Android and Apple devices were activated during the week of Christmas, according to estimates. Flurry estimated that just before the holidays the global, active installed base of Apple and Android devices was 245m, implying an 8% increase in devices during Christmas week.
Furry found that;
- The majority of downloads were in the US accounting for 509m or 42.3% of the total.
- 99m were in China which is seeing rapid increases in smartphone use.
- UK was third in number of downloads, with 81m.
- 6.8m devices were activated on Christmas day
Games such as Angry Birds and Where’s My Water? dominated the charts of most popular downloads, with board-games, such as Monopoly, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit, adapted for mobile devices, seeing the largest numbers of downloads.
In the UK, many people also installed free catch-up TV applications, such as the BBC iPlayer, the ITV Player and 4oD Catch Up. Skype, the free video calling service was also among the top 10 free apps on the Apple store in the UK.
Flurry gathered its data via its analytics tool which monitored downloads and usage of 140,000 apps in both Google’s Android Market and Apple’s App Store. Google also confirmed that more than 3.7m new Android-based devices came into use over the Christmas weekend.
Source: ft.com
