• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, January 2, 2013

Flurry last week reported iOS and Android device activations on Christmas Day nearly tripled from a year ago to 17.4 million. App downloads also set a record for the day at 328 million. The app advertising and analytics firm today offered new data showing strong gains in activations and downloads for the entire week between Christmas and New Year’s Day.

For the week, over 50 million iOS and Android devices were activated, and 1.76 billion apps were downloaded, a 65% increase from the weekly average of 1.07 downloads in December. The U.S. accounted for the bulk of downloads, with 604 million, or 34.3%.

Given wider adoption of smartphones and tablets, Flurry said it expects one billion-download weeks to become the norm in 2013, and projects the industry will surpass the two billion downloads in a week in the fourth quarter next year.