A total of 1.76 billion new iOS and Android applications were downloaded around the world between Christmas and New Year’s Eve (December 25-31), says Flurry in new research, with that record level of activity spurred by 328 million downloads on Christmas Day. The 1.76 billion downloads during the last week of the year represent a 65% rise from the early December baseline number of downloads (weekly average, December 4-17), and were buoyed by more than 50 million iOS and Android device activations.
The US accounted for slightly more than one-third of the application downloads during “holiday week,” or 604 million. China saw the next-highest number, at 183 million, with Flurry attributing the relatively smaller volume to Christmas not being celebrated by many in China. The UK came in third with 132 million downloads, with all other countries in the top 20 ranging between 15 (Malaysia) and 57 (Germany) million downloads. In general, countries that over-indexed in app downloads relative to the size of their smart device installed base celebrate Christmas more widely than those that under-indexed, such as China, Japan, and South Korea.
Flurry expects that Q4 of this year will bring a week in which app downloads exceed 2 billion.
