Android and iOS Xmas app downloads smash records

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The final week of 2011 saw record levels of Android and iOS app downloads and device activations, according to a report.

Analytics company Flurry estimated that 1.2 billion apps were downloaded between Christmas Day and 31 December, whilst over 20 million Android and iOS devices were activated.

In the UK there were 81 million app downloads, making it the third most app happy nation in that week. The US took the lion's share of downloads, however, racking up 509 million. China was second on 99 million.

Flurry expects breaking the one-billion-download-barrier per week will become more common-place.

"The final week of the year, between Christmas and New Year’s Day, grew by 60 per cent over the early-December baseline, historically punching through the billion download barrier for the first time ever," said Flurry's Peter Farago, in a blog post.

"Looking forward to 2012, Flurry expects breaking the one-billion-download-barrier per week will become more common-place. While iOS and Android growth continues to amaze, the market is still by all measures relatively nascent."

App downloads far surpassed expectations in 2011. In early December, it emerged Google's Android Market had seen 10 billion apps downloaded in total. The tech giant said it was seeing a growth rate of one billion app downloads per month.

In October, ABI Research said Android had overtaken iOS in terms of app downloads. Ovum predicted earlier in the year that Android would be ahead of Apple's app sales by around two billion by the end of 2011.

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