Did you download apps on your brand-new Android- or iOS-based device this Christmas? You're not alone; app downloads on those platforms jumped 125 percent on Dec. 25, while actual device activations surged 353 percent, according to mobile analytics firm Flurry.
Between Dec. 1-20, there were about 1.5 million Android devices and iPhones activated on a daily basis. But that jumped to 6.8 million on Christmas, a 353 percent increase, Flurry said in a blog post.
"Compared to Christmas Day 2010, the previous single-day record, with 2.8 million device activations, Christmas 2011 grew by more than 140 percent," Flurry found.
Last week, Google revealed that it it now activating 700,000 Android devices each day. "For those wondering, we count each device only once (ie, we don't count re-sold devices), and 'activations' means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service," Google's Andy Rubin said in a Google+ post.
On apps, meanwhile, app users averaged about 108 million downloads per day during the first 20 days of December, but that jumped to 242 million on Christmas Day, Flurry found. Christmas Eve also saw a jump to about 150 million downloads.
Most people settled in with their new devices and started downloading apps between 7-9pm local time, Flurry found, when hourly downloads exceeded 15 million.
Did you get a new smartphone? See PCMag's roundup of the best apps for your phone, as well as PCMag's 10 Most Popular Phones of 2011.