According to a new report released by analytics firm Flurry, mobile phone application downloads increased by 91 percent on Christmas day compared to any other day in the first three weeks of December.
This is a huge jump and most of it could be credited to the recent trend of gifting tablets and smartphones to friends and loved ones. Of late, the affordability of these devices has made them ideal Christmas gifts, which in turn has led to an immense app download rush.
Flurry also found that the spike in application downloads during Christmas has been rising over the years, making it a great time for application builders to make some good cash.
"Flurry's data showed another record-breaking level of app downloads this Christmas, but it also provides further evidence that, in the early mobile markets at least, devices are evolving from being our new shiny toys to our everyday companions," Flurry wrote in a blog post Monday.
The spike in application downloads this Christmas was 11 percent higher than it was last Christmas, which makes this year the biggest ever for mobile application downloads. Even on any average day of December this year, there was a 25 percent hike in app downloads compared to December 2012.
However, there was a decrease in some app download statistics this year. Furry reported that rate of year-over-year app download growth and year-over-year Christmas-time app growth has "slowed considerably," from 97 percent in 2011 and 90 percent in 2012.
"Many consumers in Western Europe and English-speaking countries-large mobile markets where Christmas is a big holiday-already have a smartphone and/or a tablet," Flurry wrote. "Consumers who are on second, third, or fourth devices have apps that they like and trust, and while they still download new apps, there isn't much more impetus to do so on Christmas than any other day when they have a little downtime."
According to the report, most of the apps downloaded this Christmas were leisure-oriented ones. Users downloaded social apps and games twice as much on Christmas than any other average day in the month of December.
A previous IBM report revealed that iOS users downloaded more applications on Christmas day that Android users. This was quite a surprising find considering the number of Android users greatly surpasses Apple's iOS users. According to the report, iOS users accounted for approximately 23 percent of the sales on the sites IBM measured.
