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Smartphones and tablets were some of if not the most popular gifts for giving this holiday season. Perhaps you received one or used that holiday bonus to treat yo’ self, and if you did you can count yourself among the over 50 million who activated an Android or iOS device in the final week of December. About 17 million were activated on Christmas Day alone.
And all those devices are worthless without apps, or that’s what the numbers dictate. You all downloaded 1.76 billion applications and games during the same time period, according to Flurry, who ran the analytics. The numbers are up from last year’s holiday season when we saw 20 million activations and 1.2 billion app downloads. Things only look to move up in 2013. Early forecasts see app downloads breaking the 2 billion mark for the same week this year.
Flurry did not provide a breakdown of how many devices for each platform were activated. It likely wasn’t a pure 50/50 split. Who out there counts themselves among the 50 million plus owners of a shiny new mobile device?
[via BGR]
I am beginning to wonder how close to saturation we are in the smartphone space now. I know for devices it’s not big deal, as there are still a lot of “new every two” style contracts out there to keep the turn-over going, but that won’t affect apps, which are tied to accounts rather than devices.
Something to think about…
This is actually where Android has a lot of potential for developers (especially in tablet Apps). As Android tablet purchases pick up and as Android app downloads pick up (because they haven’t been as strong as iOS app purchases) there is a massive potential for revenue.
True. I was looking at it from the “The apps I have now are all I will ever need” perspective which, I admit, is pretty unrealistic.
Just wondering (aloud, I guess) how much growth the industry has at this point, really. …but they’ll be making new apps as fast (if not faster) than they make new devices, so I suppose “saturation” in this market doesn’t really mean as much as it does in other markets.
Sometimes I just need to type it out to see how obvious it is. ;-)
I actually had a similar conversation on Christmas. I purchased my gf an Android tablet (her first Android device) and her mother got an iPad mini from her father. My gf downloaded 20 new apps that day including about $10 in paid apps. My girlfriend’s mother just synced the tablet with her iOS account and had everything she needed since she had previously owned an iPad 2. We then brought up phones and my gf, her father, and her mother all had iPhones and could not remember the last time they had paid for an app. (It was one of the Angry Birds apps). They have had iPhones long enough that they really haven’t had to buy too many new apps.
Now clearly this may be an exaggeration example, but it is something to wonder about.
Well, at least now I know I’m not the only one. ツ
And I just got a new Android phone and it automatically syncs with my Gmail account and all my paid apps.
Like I said this was an extreme case. But the current trends show more new people coming to Android, and that especially holds true with tablets. Hence why I said there is a big potential for tablet optimized apps right now.
No device for me, but got my girlfriend a Nexus 7. Btw she loves it.
Good on you for not getting her an iPad.
She owns an iPhone so I considered going iPad mini but I truly think the Nexus 7 is a better tablet. Plus, the iPad mini is too big and too small. It’s far too wide to hold comfortably in one hand. Plus it is too thin and too slippery. Every time I hold one I feel like I am going to drop it. The rubberized back and smaller width of the Nexus 7 just makes it far more portable.
I just can’t get past why people love Apple so much, sorry it’s just a grievance of mine, everyone seems to “have to have it”. I hope she enjoys the nexus.