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NewsPoster · Dec 27, 2012, 02:20 PM

Christmas Day 2012 saw some 2.5 times the number of Android and iOS devices activated compared to the same day last year, analytics firm Flurry reports, with a staggering 332 percent increase in the number of activations on that day compared to the usual average daily activations for the rest of December. Compared to some 6.8 million mobile devices activated last year on Christmas Day, Tuesday's total was over 17.4 million units.

Flurry did not provide breakdowns by platform, but the phenomenal growth in the market is likely to benefit Apple's iOS more than Android, at least in terms of tablets. Tablets also provided the biggest surprise in the stats, showing that on Christmas Day -- for the first time -- tablet activations slightly outnumbered phone activations, showing up as 51 percent of the total number of devices activated. Smartphone activations typically take 80 percent of the mobile activations on other days. The result confirms early surveys that shows that most demographics wanted an iPad or iPad mini this year, though the Kindle Fire HD were hinted to have reached annual highs on the day as well. The report, while not giving out specifics, said that Apple's two tablet models and Amazon's Kindle Fire HD were the big winners in tablet activations that day -- with the Fire HD achieving an activation rate of "several thousand percent" higher than is typical for the product. The Fire HD was the only Android tablet mentioned in Flurry's results, though Google's mobile OS is likely to have done much better when it comes to smartphones. App downloads were also way up on December 25, with Flurry recording a 112 percent increase in the number of downloads compared to the December daily average, with a total of 328 million apps downloaded. Tuesday was thus an all-time record for single-day app download counts, with hourly averages around 20 million for almost the entire waking day in users' respective time zones. The company says download levels will typically remain elevated throughout the last week of December and into New Year's Day, as people continue to explore and augment their new devices. Download counts for the overall period are expected to surpass 1.5 billion and may even reach a record 2 billion downloads by the end of the New Years holiday, which would again be an all-time record for the fast-growing industry.

blahblahbber · Dec 27, 2012, 05:58 PM

yeah yeah yeah.... half of them will get put away or resold.

Charles Martin · Dec 27, 2012, 07:16 PM

Yes ... the Android ones, when people realise what a complete pieces of junk they are. There is NO tablet-app ecosystem on Android, so I feel sorry for those people ... particularly since they probably ASKED for an iPad but their cheapskate relatives figured the no-name plastic thing was "just as good." Sad.

wrenchy · Dec 27, 2012, 10:35 PM

Originally Posted by chas_m

but their cheapskate relatives figured the no-name plastic thing was "just as good." Sad.

I love my Nexus 7 tablet. I would not trade it for anything. Yes it's made of plastic. So what? I don't care. Price has nothing to do with anything. It does what I need it to do and more. I don't like the "Look and Feel" of the iPad/Mini. But that's me (and a lot of others apparently...).

What's sad is the fact that jealous Apple zealots will criticize and label other competing tablets as "Cheap", "knock-off", "Plastic", "No-name", when they clearly know that Android is better. If you don't believe me, take it from one of "Your Own"...

http://www.mactrast.com/2012/12/guy-kawasaki-from-apple-employee-to-android-fan/

blahblahbber · Dec 27, 2012, 10:58 PM

Originally Posted by wrenchy

I love my Nexus 7 tablet. I would not trade it for anything. Yes it's made of plastic. So what? I don't care. Price has nothing to do with anything. It does what I need it to do and more. I don't like the "Look and Feel" of the iPad/Mini. But that's me (and a lot of others apparently...).
What's sad is the fact that jealous Apple zealots will criticize and label other competing tablets as "Cheap", "knock-off", "Plastic", "No-name", when they clearly know that Android is better. If you don't believe me, take it from one of "Your Own"...
http://www.mactrast.com/2012/12/guy-kawasaki-from-apple-employee-to-android-fan/

Excellent!... more "switchers" to come.... wait and see!!

kerryb · Dec 28, 2012, 07:19 AM

Let me point out to all of those that did not read past the headline of this article, the sale figures were NOT broken down to show the percentage of iOS devices vs brand X devices. Save you bickering and analysis until that time.

Spheric Harlot · Dec 28, 2012, 09:03 AM

^ that was a deliberate move.

SockRolid · Dec 28, 2012, 10:42 AM

iPad is absolutely, totally dominating the web in terms of pad computer page views.
There may or may not be a strong correlation between page views and activations, but I'd guess that there is.

Title says it all: "For every 100 web pageviews on an iPad, a Kindle gets 5, a Galaxy gets 3, and a Surface gets 0.22"

http://venturebeat.com/2012/12/27/fo...ace-gets-0-22/

SockRolid · Dec 28, 2012, 10:51 AM

Originally Posted by wrenchy

[...] What's sad is the fact that jealous Apple zealots will criticize and label other competing tablets as "Cheap", "knock-off", "Plastic", "No-name", when they clearly know that Android is better. [...]

What's sad is the fact that Google makes no money from Android. And it's also sad that Amazon loses money on each and every Kindle Fire they sell. And yes, it's sad that Android padlet manufacturers are forced to cut corners in futile attempts to generate sales by undercutting iPad pricing. And sadly, they still lose money dumping their cheap plastic no-name iPad knockoffs onto the market.