Christmas Day Records Blown Out For iOS and Android Device Activations

Christmas Day is always a day filled with activations of new devices. After all, Santa's just there to bring new gizmos, right? Kidding aside, it's quite clear that the mobile movement is forging ahead, as Flurry's latest analytic data shows that December 25, 2012 was a record day for the activation of mobile products. This year, more iPhones, iPads, Galaxy's, Kindle Fires and phones of all shapes and sizes were activated than on any other day in the history of the world. You read that correctly. As soon as the wrapping paper began to fall off, activations went through the roof.

The chart below shows the number of new iOS and Android devices detected worldwide by Flurry on Christmas Day. With more than 260,000 apps using Flurry Analytics, Flurry detects over 90% of all new iOS and Android devices activated each day. The company regularly triangulates its device coverage with publicly announced figures from Google and Apple.


For comparison? During the first 20 days of December 2013, around 4 million activations occurred each day. On 12/25? That soared to nearly 17.5 million, representing a 332% increase over the earlier baseline. Even crazier, the prior single day record was held in Christmas 2011, and even that day saw only 6.8 million device activations. In other words, merely a year after last Christmas, we were activating nearly as many new devices each normal day as we were on Christmas Day in 2011. That's a crazy, crazy growth rate.


No matter how you slice it, it's great news for hardware makers as well as app developers. With more of these devices flooding the market, there will be increased demand for new apps and software. In fact, the company also saw skyrocketing app downloads compared to non-Christmas holiday days. Hold on to your hats, folks -- mobile is the new battleground.