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Mobile app downloads this holiday season shows slowing growth

This year still had the largest figures to date, but the year over year increases are beginning to ease.

Over the holiday season, tablets and smartphones proved to be a highly popular gift, yet again, and it should therefore not come as a shock to anyone that the number of mobile app downloads broke another range of records in 2013.

This most recent gift giving season saw an increase of 91 percent in downloaded applications.

That rate was seen on Christmas day when compared to the average daily rate of mobile app downloads that was experienced for the rest of December up until that day. This data was reported in a recent publication by Flurry, a mobile measurements and analytics platform. That company examined the transfer of more than 400,000 applications in order to determine what recipients of new iOS and Android devices were doing with them after they were unwrapped as gifts from under the tree.

The research found that mobile app downloads also increased by 11 percent.

mobile app downloads That growth figure was recorded between the number of downloaded applications on Christmas day 2013 when compared to the same day in 2012. As much as the numbers are still increasing and continue to break records, they are also starting to slow in their growth. The reason is believed to be that fewer consumers are receiving their devices for the first time. Though some have just obtained their first devices, many have obtained their second, third, or even fourth ones.

Consumers who already have smartphones and who have now received tablets, or who are receiving replacement devices already know what apps they like and trust. There is less experimenting to try out different things for the first time.

Flurry’s report explained that “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.”

It also pointed out that the largest increases in device ownership and mobile app downloads are typically in countries where there is a less significant importance placed on Christmas or where it is not celebrated.

Mobile commerce sales on Christmas led by iOS

This American data was reported in the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark.

IBM has released its Digital Analytics Benchmark which looked into the mobile commerce sales that occurred on Christmas Day and has revealed that once again the largest number of purchases were made by devices based on Apple’s iOS operating system.

Overall, there was an increase in online shopping in the United States of 16.5 percent over last year.

That said, what they underscored as being most notable was the number of mobile commerce sales and the increase that occurred between Christmas Day last in 2012 and in 2013. Smartphone and tablet based purchases made up 29 percent of all of the online purchases that took place on that day. This was a notable increase from the 21 percent that was seen the year before.

iOS stood out as completely dominant in mobile commerce sales on Christmas Day 2013.Christmas Mobile Ciommerce  Shopping Statistics

On that day, iOS came out far stronger than Android. Apple devices were the source of a tremendously higher percentage of the online purchases than those based on the Google operating system. In fact, the iOS share was five times greater than that of Android. Among all online sales, Apple’s devices were the source of 23 percent, and Android devices made up 5 percent of the purchases.

When focusing exclusively on mobile commerce sales, iOS devices represented a tremendous 83 percent, in comparison to a measly 16 percent from Android devices. This, despite the fact that the number of Android devices far outnumbers that of Apple devices. Android currently represents 51 percent of the U.S. smartphone market, leaving Apple way behind, but it still looks as though iOS is a market that can be monetized far more easily. Beyond the number of conversions, it is also the amount of traffic that was greater from Apple smartphones and tablets.

Furthermore, it was notable that tablets generated almost a fifth of the number of online sales on Christmas Day. This is much higher than the 9.3 percent from the same day the year before. This is surprising as there are far more smartphones than tablets.