Find: Apps Indystate by Flurry - downloads smash records—1.76 billion in one week—during the holidays

App downloads smash records—1.76 billion in one week—during the holidays

Consumers may be slow to get back into the groove after the holiday, but that didn't stop them from spending time in a mobile app store. On the last week of 2012, a record-breaking 1.76 billion apps were downloaded to both iOS and Android devices, according to a report from Flurry analytics.


Other records were also broken in the last week, including the most device activations and app downloads in a single day. Flurry estimates that at least 17.4 million iOS and Android devices were activated on Christmas Day, while 328 million apps were downloaded among both mobile platforms. To top that off, more than 50 million iOS and Android devices were activated between Christmas and New Year’s, though it was not specified whether these were tablet or smartphone numbers. All in all, app downloads increased by 65 percent when compared to Flurry’s early December numbers, and broke the record from last year’s count, which was 1.2 billion. The numbers show impressive growth for the two biggest app marketplaces, and Flurry posits that it may very well set the precedent for app downloads for this year.


Flurry took its data from analysis it gathered on more than 260,000 apps available in the iTunes App Store and Google Play store. All of that data is then cross-referenced against figures released by Apple and Google to help round out the final numbers. The company claims it can detect more than 90 percent of devices activated each day. The site makes no mention of whether or not the numbers include downloads from the Windows Phone Marketplace or BlackBerry App World.