• by Steve Smith  @popeyesm, December 28, 2011

The mobile metrics keep coming this holiday. Andy Rubin, Google’s senior vice president of mobile, tweeted on Wednesday that the Android operating system saw 3.7 million activations on Dec. 24 and Dec. 25. That number for the holiday weekend is about double Rubin’s recent claim, also on Twitter, that Android activations were averaging 700,000 devices daily.

With few credible tablets in market running the Android operating system, it is safe to assume that virtually all activations involved new smartphones. While both Amazon and Barnes & Noble introduced tablets running heavily modified versions of the Google mobile OS, neither requires activation on a specific wireless service.

Rubin’s note complements the wave of reports this week from app analytics firms showing massive upticks in mobile app usage and app store sign-ons. Flurry noted a doubling in app downloads on Dec. 25 and 6.8 million activations from iOS and Android devices.  

Android’s 53% share of the smartphone market continues to overshadow the iPhone with 15% (per Gartner). But Apple’s iOS operating system also includes the iPad and iPod Touch.

Cumulatively, iOS has a 54% share of the mobile and tablet devices accessing the Web, according to online metrics company NetMarketshare.