Many consumers unwrapped Apple devices this Christmas while fewer seem to have received Samsung devices, according to researcher Flurry.
The Yahoo unit, which tracks 600,000 apps, looked at downloads from Dec. 19 through Dec. 25 and found Apple took 51.3% of all app downloads. Samsung was No. 2 with 17.7%. Here's how the top companies fared:
[seealso slug="apple-holiday-ad-2014"]
As Jarah Euston, Flurry's VP of analytics and marketing, joked in a blog post: "It’s clear that Santa is no longer into cookies -- he prefers Apples."
Ho ho ho.
The strong figures for Apple come as IDC reported in the third quarter that iOS's share of the global market was 11.7% compared to 84.4% for Android. The Flurry figures refer to the U.S. market.
As usual, Christmas Day is a huge occasion for app downloads as consumers attempt to app-up their new mobile devices. This year, Dec. 25 saw more than double the number of downloads over an average day in December, according to Flurry. The research also showed that phablets are gaining in popularity, though medium-size phones still account for the bulk of volume:
It's not clear how the overall number of activations ranked with years past; an overall figure for activations was not provided. Last year, Flurry reported that growth for post-Christmas downloads had slowed in recent years. Reps from the company could not be reached for comment.