Five things we learned about mobile over the holidays

The holiday season is officially over, and another calendar year is upon us. But before we move too far into 2012, let's take one last look back at the final days of 2011--a period that capped off a year of extraordinary growth and progress across the mobile ecosystem. Here are five things we learned as 2011 wound down. 

People unwrapped a whole lot of smartphones on Christmas morning. Application analytics provider Flurry estimates that consumers activated 6.8 million Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android devices on Christmas Day, a 353 percent increase over daily activations during the first three weeks of the month and a year-over-year increase of 140 percent. Christmas is always the largest mobile device activation day of the calendar year, but the momentum continued through the end of the month: Flurry reported Monday that between Dec. 25 and Dec. 31, subscribers activated more than 20 million iOS and Android devices in all--the most activations ever recorded in a single week.

New smartphone owners couldn't wait to download apps to their devices. Flurry adds that Christmas Day smartphone recipients downloaded 242 million applications in the hours immediately after opening their gifts and installed 1.2 billion apps during the week leading up to New Year's Eve--another single-week record. The U.S. market generated 509 million downloads during the final week of 2011, accounting for 42.3 percent of all iOS and Android installs worldwide. Nations like the United Kingdom (81 million downloads), Canada (41 million), Germany (40 million, France (40 million), Australia (28 million), Italy (25 million), Spain (20 million) and Mexico (17 million) also over-indexed during the holiday period.

Yes, Virginia, there are millions of people who still haven't downloaded Angry Birds. Another 6.5 million consumers installed the wildly popular mobile game on Christmas Day, a new single-day record. The total includes downloads for the original Angry Birds and its Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio spinoffs, as well as a mix of free and premium downloads. A year ago, 2 million iOS and Android device owners installed Angry Birds on the Christmas holiday. Angry Birds also reigns as 2011's most downloaded mobile app across all stores and operating systems, according to data published last month by app marketplace analytics firm Distimo.

Amazon.com's Kindle Fire was another hugely popular holiday gift. Priced at $199, more than half off the price of Apple's cheapest iPad, the Android-powered Kindle Fire is the bestselling, most gifted and most wished-for product across Amazon's digital retail platform, with sales of 4 million units during the holiday season. Morgan Keegan investment analyst Tavis McCourt said in a note to investors that the Kindle Fire likely cost Apple between 1 million and 2 million iPad sales during the holiday season.

Late last month, mobile advertising network Millennial Media reported Kindle Fire ad impressions have increased at an average daily rate of 19 percent since the device launched in mid-November. But Kindle Fire impressions exploded 261 percent on Christmas Day, Millennial reports--the tablet experienced an average daily growth rate of 113 percent between Dec. 23 and Dec. 26, the firm adds.

People turned to their mobile devices to buy all the stuff Santa didn't bring them. IBM reports that overall online sales on Christmas Day increased 16.4 percent compared to the previous year, with 18.3 percent of all online sessions across retailer websites originating via mobile device--a 117.8 percent year-over-year spike. A full 7.0 percent of all online sales originated via the iPad, followed by the iPhone at 6.4 percent--Android devices yielded another 5.0 percent of digital sales. Look for even more consumers to go shopping on their smartphones and tablets as 2012 unfolds. And remember: There are only 355 shopping days left until next Christmas.--Jason