Android and iOS Break Records with 6.8 Million Activations on Christmas Day

Now we know what all the cool kids were doing Christmas morning.

After opening their presents (which clearly included the new iPhone 4S and numerous Android smartphones, along with a cornucopia of iPads and a handful of Android tablets), the cool kids, phat cats,

cats, tenacious teens, and auspicious adults did what any sane consumer base would do and activated their snazzy new devices – nearly seven million of them! That's according to

(via

), a mobile apps research firm that covers four platforms: Apple

iOS, Google

Android, Research in Motion's

BlackBerry platform, and Microsoft's

oddly titled Windows Phone 7. "Historically, more iOS and Android apps are downloaded on Christmas than on any other day of the year," Flurry's Peter Farago

. "This is due to a massive influx of smartphones and tablets given as gifts. As fast as loved-ones can unwrap their shiny, new Galaxy IIs, iPhones, iPads, Kindle Fires, et cetera, they start loading them up with new apps." The surge in downloads – 242 million on December 25 versus 108 million (average) for the first 20 days of the month – marks a 125% increase over the previous period. iOS and Android activations, meanwhile, were up more than 350% on Christmas. "Specifically, over the December 1 – 20 baseline, download volumes increased by 125% on Christmas," Farago wrote. "Note that, relative to the percentage increase in device activations, we expect the percentage increase in downloads to be lower. This is because of the sizable device installed base in the market onto which apps are constantly downloaded. This keeps the baseline higher vis a vis the Christmas peak. However, it's also worth noting that nearly a quarter of a billion downloads occurred on Christmas Day 2011, which is more than double any other day in the history of iOS and Android devices, except December 24, which delivered roughly 150 million downloads." "As observed in 2010, Flurry expects elevated download levels from Christmas through New Year's Day," Farago added. "Over this period, we anticipate approximately 1 billion total downloads." Last week, Flurry published a report on the potential for iOS and Android growth in

. "Of note, China and South Korea now hold two of the top five positions, boasting addressable audiences greater than that of more developed countries such as Japan, France and Germany," Farago wrote. "Also worth noting is that our count of 264 million active units in the market is about half of what Apple and Google publicly state have been activated. The difference is primarily due to old device replacement. Flurry is counting recently used devices versus life-to-date device activations."