Christmas App Downloads Increased 11% Over Last Year But Year-On-Year Growth Slowed [Charts]

A new report from Flurry Analytics reveals that while Christmas app downloads increased by 11% the year-on-year growth has slowed considerably.

The company looked at more than 400,000 apps that they track globally. Christmas downloads were up by 91% compared to the average day in the first three weeks of December.

2013 was the biggest Christmas yet for mobile app downloads. As the chart below shows, overall app downloads increased by 11% on Christmas 2013 compared to Christmas 2012. Over the same one year time span, there was a 25% increase in app downloads on an average December day. As the data illustrates, both the overall rate of year-on-year growth and the year-on-year Christmas growth have slowed considerably in the past year (from 97% and 90% respectively between 2011 and 2012).


Flurry believes the slowing growth rates signal market maturation. Less people are coming online with a smartphone or tablet for the very first time. Consumers have already found apps they like and trust, thus there really isn't the need to go looking for new apps on Christmas. New device activations are also seeing a smaller spike.

New device activations do still spike on Christmas, but that spike is waning compared to years past, and it comes on top of a much larger installed base. That means that when new devices are loaded with apps, the overall impact on app download volume is not as big.

So which apps see the greatest increase in downloads at Christmas? Flurry found that games and social apps were downloaded on Christmas at twice the rate they were on a typical December day. Other categories that experienced the largest surge in Christmas downloads were media (photo, video, music) and lifestyle (sports, books, magazines, entertainment).

Check out the charts below or hit the link for more details...


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