A Very Merry Tech-mas, Indeed

Christmas Day 2012 smashed previous records for mobile device activations and app downloads, according to mobile app analytics firm Flurry.

More than 17.4 million new Kindle Fires, iPhones, iPads, Galaxy Tabs and other mobile devices were set up on Dec. 25, 2012, compared with December's daily average of 4 million mobile device activations. That's a hefty 332% increase, according to Flurry. By contrast, Christmas Day 2011 saw 6.8 million activations. Amazon reports that its Kindle Fire HD 7", Kindle Fire, and Kindle Fire HD 8.9" were all "bestsellers" on its site this holiday.

"While smartphone activations typically outpace that of tablets by 4:1, on Christmas Day 2012, more tablets were activated than smartphones," writes Peter Farago, Flurry's vice president of marketing, in the company's blog. "The big winners were Apple iPads, Apple iPad Minis and Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7" tablets. In particular, Amazon had a very strong performance in the tablet category, growing by several thousand percent over its baseline of tablet activations over the earlier part of December."

With all the devices getting switched on for the first time, it's no surprise that app downloads surged, too. While December 2012 averaged 155 million downloads daily, that number jumped to 328 million on Christmas Day -- an increase of 112%, according to Flurry. And users installed about 20 million apps an hour over the course of the day.

Flurry says that more than 260,000 mobile applications use its Flurry Analytics software, and as such, it tracks greater than 90% of the Android and iOS applications activated daily. The company supplements its numbers with the app data and stats publicly published by Google and Apple.

Get Ready, IT
So what does this mean for enterprise IT? If nothing else, pressure to accommodate BYOD will only continue to increase as more workers expect to supplement their smartphones and laptops with their brand-new tablets. It remains to be seen whether the bumper crop of Kindles under Christmas trees will make their way into the workplace and encourage further fragmentation of the device ecosystem.