Android and Apple apps break the billion downloads in a week barrier

A report has claimed that, in just the last week of December, more than one billion apps were downloaded to Apple and Android devices.

According to Flurry, which has its technology inside more than 100,000 applications across all the current smartphone platforms, it was helped by the week also seeing the highest ever level of Android and iOS device activations (merry Christmas!).

In its blog, the company claims that it can detect 90 per cent of devices being activated, while its analytics software is in 20 per cent of apps downloaded, giving it a pretty solid base from which to estimate these totals.

It goes on to say almost seven million Android and Apple smartphones and pads were activated just on Christmas Day, alongside 242 million applications – another two records to add to the list.

As for countries downloading these apps from December 25-31, the UK was an impressive third (81 million) behind the US (509m) and China (99m). Next were Canada (41m), Germany and France (both 40m).

Looking forward to the rest of 2012, Flurry is estimating that our thirst for apps will continue to increase. It predicts that more and more seven-day periods will become one billion app download weeks as iPhone, iPad and Android smartphones/tablets continue to sell by the bucket load.

It’s quite an ask though. It would seem to rely on those of us who have been fiddling around with these things for a few years continuing to obsess over the latest apps, rather than settling into patterns, while also seeing continued take-up of smartphones by new users at the current rate (or more, as Christmas is obviously a heady peak). We shall see.