More tablets were activated on Christmas Day this year than smartphones, according to new figures from Flurry Analytics.

Smartphone activations typically outpace tablets by four to one, per Flurry. However, interest in tablets has been strong this year, with the number of Amazon activations on Dec. 25 increasing by several thousand percent compared with the average number for daily activations during the earlier part of December.

?Adoption in mobile smartphones and tablets continues to grow at unprecedented rates, setting the stage for continued disruption,? said Peter Farago, vice president of marketing at Flurry Analytics, San Francisco.

?Amazon?s success shows that companies can successfully chip away at the Apple and Google duopoly,? he said.

Record setting day
There were 17.4 million iOS and Android devices activated on Christmas Day this year. In total, more iPhones, iPads, Galaxy's, Kindle Fires and other mobile devices were activated on Dec. 25 than any other day in history.

Christmas Day typically sees the highest number of device activations compared to any other day in the year. What this year's numbers show is that the growth in smartphone adoption is not slowing down and, in fact, continues to accelerate.

The 17.4 million devices activated on Christmas Day represents a 332 percent increase over the average number of daily activations during the first 20 days of December, when daily activations averaged 4 million.

Christmas Day 2011 held the previous single-day record with 6.8 million device activations.

Of the devices activated, 51 percent were tablets and 49 percent smartphones. During the earlier part of the month, smartphones typically accounted for 80 percent of activations and tablets 20 percent.

App downloads surge
The record number of iOS and Android devices hitting the market translated to a surge in app downloads.

According to Flurry's figures, there 328 million app downloads on Dec. 25, up 112 percent from the 155 million daily average for the first 20 days of the month. Again, Christmas Day set a new daily record, this time for the number of apps downloaded in one day.

The number of app downloads started trending up early in the morning, reaching a high of approximately 20 million per hour around 11 a.m. and maintaining that level through most of the day until 8 p.m., when app downloads started to trend downward again.

Flurry expects app download rates to remain elevated until New Year's Day and expects the total number to surpass 1.5 billion.

More than 260,000 apps use Flurry Analytics, meaning it is able to detect over 90 percent of all new iOS and Android devices activated each day. The company then triangulates its figures with publicly announced figures from Google and Apple.

The numbers point to a growing mobile audience, giving marketers even more reason to ensure they have a mobile strategy in place.

?Marketers need to continue to think about how their company can embrace mobile, or even think mobile first,? Mr. Farago said. ?That's where consumers are.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York