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More than 300 million users now access Facebook via mobile devices, according to a recent report.
The Next Web reports that as of Dec. 27, Facebook saw the number of monthly active users accessing its mobile applications pass the 300 million mark. TNW cited a report by Benedict Evans of Enders Analysis, which said that iOS and Android applications account for more than two-thirds of mobile application use on Facebook.
The rise in these numbers is likely attributable to the rush of Christmas gift giving, with Android and iOS devices among the most coveted gift this year.
Said Evans of the numbers he came up with: “Quite unsurprisingly, these are dominated by the two platforms that have traction, iOS and Android. As Techcrunch pointed out a few days ago, Android has now passed iOS in DAUs [daily active users], though Apple has passed the round 100m MAU [monthly active user] figure.”
However, Windows Phone and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry face a different plight. Evans added:
“Windows Phone remains quite insignificant, though that may change next year as Nokia’s efforts come fully on stream. Meanwhile, around 70% of RIM’s 70m active users have installed the Facebook app. That’s a high penetration rate (it comes to around 50% for Android and iOS) on what is supposed to be a corporate product, pointing to RIM’s strength in messaging, but also to the way that the mix is shifting away from business customers and toward emerging markets and teenage girls (in the U.K. at least).“
Yet, perhaps the most interesting analysis Evans delivered is where he says Facebook is beginning to look at iOS and Android applications as one platform. “Meanwhile, the iOS and Android apps are on the way to being one platform, with Facebook moving them more and more toward being wrappers for a common HTML5 experience,” Evans said. “Next year, Facebook will treat that user base as less of a mobile extension to the desktop experience and more as the core product-starting with advertising.”
Meanwhile, as further evidence of the hot holiday season for Android, a key Google executive said more than 3.7 million Android devices were activated over the Christmas holiday.
In a Dec. 28 tweet, Andy Rubin, senior vice president of mobile at Google, said, “There were 3.7M Android devices activated on 12/24 and 12/25.”
Just over a week earlier, Rubin took to Twitter on Dec. 20 to say: “There are now over 700,000 Android devices activated every day.” That being the case, the Android activation figures for the holiday more than doubled those of a typical two-day period – amounting to 1.85 million activations per day during the holiday.
In addition, Flurry Analytics, a big data analytics company that measures mobile application trends, released its own analysis of Android and iOS activations over the Christmas holiday. In a Dec. 27 post, Peter Ferago, vice president of engineering at Flurry Analytics, said, “On Christmas Day, activations jumped to more than 6.8 million, a 353% increase over the baseline. Compared with Christmas Day 2010, the previous single-day record, with 2.8 million device activations, Christmas 2011 grew by more than 140%.”