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Huge Christmas for iTunes, App Store

It was a very appy Christmas for Apple, which saw an 87 percent rise in Christmas Day app downloads.

December 28, 2012

It was a very appy Christmas for Apple, which saw an 87 percent rise in Christmas Day app downloads.

The season's giving spirit meant loads of new iOS devices, which obviously needed to be stocked with applications and games.

New owners didn't wait long before heading to Apple's App Store on Dec. 25, boosting the daily download figures by 87 percent compared to the daily average for December, according to app analytics tracker Distimo. Based on data collected from more than 40 countries, Cupertino also saw a 70 percent revenue jump on Christmas.

All download volumes measured by Distimo counted both free and paid apps, while revenue was calculated from one-off and in-app purchases.

"Given that the iPad downloads and revenues rose by 140 percent and 83 percent respectively, the iPad seems to have been a very popular gift," Distimo's Gert Jan Spriensma wrote in a blog entry.

Only two of the top 10 most successful iOS applications downloaded on Christmas Day were even holiday-related, according to the site's figures. YouTube took the No. 1 spot, followed by iOS newcomer Google Maps.

In third place was Office Max's Elf Yourself app, which allows users to personalize a video featuring family's and friends' faces pasted onto dancing elves. That just beat out another seasonal title, Where's My Holiday? The Disney-branded app, featuring 12 exclusive holiday-themed levels, took fourth place.

In order, the rest of the day's most downloaded apps were Skype for iPad, Subway Surfers, Flow Free, Furby, Instagram, and Emoji Icons.

Consumers shopped for more than mobile applications on Christmas, though. Tuesday saw a 27 percent increase in all e-retail shopping, according toExperian Marketing Services.

Experian said that traffic to the top 500 retail sites was up almost 30 percent compared with 2011. Those sites received more than 115.5 million total U.S. visits, the research firm said.

As of Thursday, holiday online traffic for the past seven weeks was up 10 percent versus last year, according to Experian. Unsurprisingly, Amazon topped the list, also taking home the prize this week for . The e-retail giant snagged more than 24.7 million visits on Christmas, followed by Walmart, which only captured 7.4 million. Target, Best Buy, and Macy's rounded out the top five.