As predicted here on MobileCrunch earlier this month, Apple rocked it this holiday season, and the early numbers are showing it. According to Flurry, the biggest mobile app analytics company, iPod Touch download volume saw a nearly 1,000% jump in downloads on Christmas Day. Overall, the App Store saw a 51% increase in downloads from November to December (downloads only increased by 15% from October to November). Christmas also marked the first day that iPod Touch app downloads surpassed iPhone app downloads, which makes sense (the iPod Touch is a more common gift than an iPhone; more on that later). Furthermore, the Android Market saw a nice 20% bump in app sales as well, sparked primarily by an uptick in downloads from the Motorola Droid.
The data uncovers some interesting phenomena. First, it seems like parents bought iPod touches in droves. Flurry cited previous data that teens and pre-teens tend to download far more apps than older iPod and iPhone owners. VP of Marketing Peter Farago also noted that the iPod touch has clearly become a major player for Apple in terms of app sales. Second, Christmas is a huge day for app sales and app developers should take note. Just as the major retailers gear up for the holiday season, perhaps mobile app developers should be considering similar pre-Christmas preparations. If you’re developing an app at the end of the year, make sure to get it out before Christmas. Finally, I would expect an extremely strong Q1 from Apple. The data indicates that iPod touch sales skyrocketed leading up to Christmas, and that Apple’s App Store sales also saw a similar bump. Also expect the relatively smaller increase in month-to-month growth for Android to improve the value of Apple’s stock. It seems like, for now, they are defending themselves well against the Android OS. We’ll see whether that holds true after the Google Phone hits the market.
Santa delivered some good news for Motorola, too. The highest number of Android App Sales came from the Droid – in fact, 49% of all Android Apps sold on Christmas day came from that one handset. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to guess that the Droid is the best-selling Android-powered phone. That’s great news for Google, too, because it means that they are continuing to grow as a platform and that solid hardware (on the right network) can fuel that growth.
That said, the App Store is still destroying Android. Despite a lot of momentum and buzz behind Google’s vaunted, developer-friendly mobile OS, it really isn’t holding a candle to the iPhone OS. App Store downloads are 13 times greater than the Android Market. Additionally, the fact that the already-mature App Store saw a 50% monthly growth rate versus the Android Market’s 20% is impressive. One would think that the App Store growth would plateau at some point, but it doesn’t show any signs of leveling off just yet.
It’s important to remember that the data you’re seeing isn’t sales data, so of course many of the extrapolations are conjecture. It is plausible that the gap between the App Store and Android Market does not in any way relate to handset sales. Nonetheless, it is likely that the sale of the device would trend alongside app sales.
test
tested ok.
How far can tech innovation go? we are at the apex now. we dont need another app or website for anything. we have enough to work with. the app race is futile. It’s always the quality not the quantity. Another point of view about the droid app’s ascend: http://bit.ly/android-apps-exagerated-apps
What happened to Zune HD gifting compared to iPod touch? which as well had free game apps, and main rival..
It seems Good Growth For Android phones
As long as the apps being created are in for quality, then user won’t mind about the numbers. Well except for people who likes to count ‘insignificantly”.
Way to go for the Droid AppsDetails: http://bit.ly/android-apps-exagerated-apps
how far can tech innovation go? we are at the apex now. we dont need another app or website for anything. we have enough to work with. the app race is futile. It’s always the quality not the quantity. Another point of view about the droid’s app increase: http://bit.ly/android-apps-exagerated-apps
Nice, Keep up the good work Apple!
The iPod touch is cool because it enables an almost desktop class mobile computing experience, It is not surprising that iPod touch users are consuming apps more than iPhone users during the holidays because iPod touch users will eventually become the biggest consumers of software someday. Android success shows that this new category of information appliance is getting traction and growing . It is not a fad. I am surprised that we have not found new terminology for this new phenomena.
Fad? Let’s see, you get a computer experience on a hand held computing device. Who would have ever thought that could have been a fad? I think we were predicting handheld computers for the last decade.
It statistics show the popularity of Apple…And also the popularity of Android is growing as well…
Great work…
Looks like Apple shifted a shedload of iPod Touches for Xmas.
yep, 25th was one hell of a day…
Hmm, you say 13 times more sales in the Apple store compared to the Android Market, claiming this is not good news for Android. I beg to differ actually. First of all, as I understand it more than half of the sales in the Apple store is from Ipod Touch which is not a phone and one could hence discuss whether or not those figures should be included. Second, I was actually expecting a much larger difference. Just look at how long time Mozilla used to make a dent in the browser market, or how long it has taken Apple or the Linux community to make a dent in the OS market.
Iphone had a huge head start in this “smart phone market”, but apparently Google has clearly released a very solid competitor! I am very happy to see that we get a good competition between several companies in this market, which I think in the end serves us consumers well.
For the general public, at least for now, it’s all about name/brand association: Most of my non-technical colleagues associate phone “apps” with iPhone, few with Android. To keep its dominance, Apple, in part, must maintain this association in the minds of consumers. This is just like Google becoming synonymous with “search”, becoming a verb in the lexicon. Kleenex, any one?
I hope this momentum will continue next year as well
Its just downloads. I dont understand how any serious analysis can be done on download figures.
I mean how many shareware downloads does zdnet get ? Who cares ?
I just can figure this apple obsessive culture
Yep. The amount of dollars spent would be much more interesting than the number of downloads. These figures are clearly being used to advertise the mobile Apple platform to application developers, but they don’t say anything about consumers’ willingness to spend money on apps.
“I dont understand how any serious analysis can be done on download figures.” The point of the trend discussion is to infer the sales numbers for the devices, since Apple won’t give that information out until their next earnings statement, but it matters to tech followers and investors. It’s pretty clear that a massive bump in app downloads on December 25th implies a large increase in the user base on that day, which many people refer to as “Christmas.” It’s a major gift-giving holiday, fyi. So it’s logical to deduce that many, many iPod touches were sold by Apple, given out that day, and tried out by eager new customers. Which will show up in the next earnings statement – hence the interest.
Interesting data, I also wonder how much gift cards may have driven a one time bump in sales. I do understand that iPod touches are a much more common gift, but I wonder how much long-term purchasing power their owners have. We’ll see if sales go back to slightly higher than pre-holiday levels, if not, good for apple. If so, you can thank those ubiquitous gift cards at checkout isles.
No Sh**!
I noticed spike going at xmas as well my traffic quadrupled! I own http://ipodtouchtricks.blogspot.com which is one of the most ipod touch popular blogs, said that I must admit that with after xmas sale and for xmas ipod touch really has demanded gifts this year.
Hey idiot: This isn’t an ad space and nobody is interested in your little blog.
…And what the heck is “xmas”???
The iPod touch allows Apple to sell to a market that doesn’t want AT&T or can’t afford a smartphone data plan and isn’t limited by region, country or telcos or age. Apple is capturing an entire generation of customers before they are old enough to own a smart phone and is effectively doubling its marketshare in the mobile space.
Amazingly, no one else has a competing product. By this time next year, the iPod touch will completely eclipse the PSP and Nintendo DS in sales.
I would love an Android device that works like the iPod Touch. I don’t need the full smartphone of all the new Android devices coming out, but would love to be able to use it on a wifi (like I do my touch).
The beauty of developing for Apple is that the Touch reaches so many folks who can’t afford expensive monthly smart phone data plans. I anticipated touch sales to be excellent but we’ll see what the numbers actually are in a few months. I agree with Adam that iTunes gift cards are a HUGE reason for the massive spikes.
We gave my nephew a $25 iTunes gift card and his reply was, “sweet, now I have over $100 in iTunes gift cards. He is not alone out there.
Let January (and February) continue to show lift in overall app sales!
The iPhone and iPod Touch are a dual-head monster which makes it difficult for the Android market to compete.
Realize that developers for apps are swayed by how large the market for their products are. The market for Android products consists only of Android smartphones. The market for iPhone Apps is MORE THAN DOUBLE the size of the number of iPhones because it includes the more numerous iPod Touches. The potential market for a developer’s product on the Apple app store completely dwarfs that of the Android app store – particularly as the Android gets decimated by having many incompatible versions and smartphone hardware combinations.
The addition of the iSlate from Apple will further expand the marketshare for Apple App Store apps. Developers will thus see a hugely growing market for their efforts and profits on the Apple App Store, while seeing a growing fractured market for apps on Android.
Apple wins.
I wonder if android is that much different than apple. IPod touch does not receive free OS upgrades. Some % of users always gets left behind.
Quite allot different. IPod touch users will get all minor updates for their current OS for free. For example 3.0 iPod touch users get 3.1, and as far as Apple continue with minor upgrades. So far the praxis is to do free upgrades every second months for a little over a year.
The all iPod touch users are eligible for a major upgrade for a modest fee, as in $9.
On Android? Basically no upgrades for anyone who can not roll his own. And definitely no official upgrade path.
“Apple wins.”
From what? Free apps? Most people don’t seem to be paying for apps.
I agree with many posters observations that iPod Touch is really helping Apple maintain lead in smartphone/smart device. There are many ads on craigslist.org here in Miami wanting to buy iPod touches, some in bulk.
Hi everyone,
I am from Flurry, who released this report. A lot of you are making the insightful connection that the iPod Touch is strategically important to Apple and helps serve as a one-two punch in the market place along with iPhone. We noticed this too and wrote an in depth report just a couple weeks ago about this observatoin called “Apple’s Weapon of Mass Consumption: the iPod Touch.” The report is on our blog at this link if you want to read more about it.
http://blog.flurry.com/bid/28786/Flurry-Smartphone-Industry-Pulse-November-2009
Best regards,
Peter Farago
VP Marketing
Flurry
Probably should be qualified as the top 400 apps who have visibility on the phone saw growth in sales in Nov and Dec. For the other 99%, noise…
Looks like our app was up 500% to 1000% depending on the day… A very Merry Christmas!
So, the App Store’s thunder is really coming from iPod Touch users who will less likely upgrade to the iPhone to use as a phone. With phones, in addition to social networking, gaming, video and picture taking, users use them for, navigation and other mobile intensive uses. Instead of sticking with Apple, they will chose other more robust OS’s like Android. Like moving from McDonald to In-N-Out Burger.
Is this based on some actual data, experience or reasoning? Or is it just your happy wishes?
Personally I have seen many iPod touch users who have bought an iPhone as their next phone. The general consensus being that an iPhone is like the iPod touch they already love, but more.
So far the number of users who have moved from iPod touch, or iPhone onto Android or any other mobile platform are scarce. I have only heard about them second hand.
The domain http://www.MobileAppStore.com is now for sale.
What do you think about the current bid?
Amazon has said in it’s press release that “During the 2009 holiday season, Amazon customers bought enough 8 GB iPod touches to play 442 years of continuous music.”
If someone can do the math and add some estimations for different models, it should give a general idea of the overall iPod touch sales from Amazon.
Apple generally claims 8GB iPod would hold up to 2000 songs (4 minutes each, 128kbps AAC)
So the number of Amazon’s holiday season iPod touch 8GB sales is surprisingly low.
About 29,039
Makes you wander how many Kindles Amazon have sold during the same period.
No kidding. Since this is the first xmas where the Kindle has been their #1 seller, the number of units sold should on the same order of magnitude as #2. Which means they probably sold somewhere between 50k and 100k this “holiday season”. That’s pretty pathetic.
No wonder they never mention sales figures and instead try to talk about anything but.
Three takeaways on this one. One, the iPod Touch is such a game changer in that it allows Apple to segment the market between subsidized, carrier-oriented offerings and non-subsidized, direct to consumer ones, a strategy that they would be wise to repeat across bag-able (Tablet) and Home Theater (Apple TV) device segments.
Two, as a platform play, it amazes me how few grok the combined footprint of iPhone/iPod Touch and what it means to consumer and developer pull (not to mention Apple’s massive billing relationship). People get so caught up in the phone/non phone distinction that they treat the numbers as somehow a 1+1=<2 story. Dumb.
Three, the Android device % split is emblematic of the challenges that Google will face in trying to avoid their platform from fragmenting, a challenge that they have only accelerated by announcing their own branded phone, something that I blogged about in:
Android, Inevitability and the Dawn of Mobile:
http://bit.ly/87URNI
Check it out, if interested.
Mark
Both my wife and I got iPod Touches for Christmas. We probably downloaded about 40 apps each right away to try it out. Only one of those was a paid app, the rest were free ones. Free apps makes it easy for the app downloads to skyrocket.
Browsing through the app store free app section, it is easy to just click install on every app that sounds even remotely useful. You can always remove them later if you don’t like it.
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