App Store and Google Play, watch out for records on New Year's Day

This year has been big for tech. So big, in fact, that electronics' sales grew 7.5% over the holidays. This may not sound like much, but has in fact been the largest such increase in a decade, meaning that there was quite a lot of gear under those Christmas trees that will have to be opened, set up, and apps and games have to be loaded on it. Case in point - the Nintendo and Sony servers went down yesterday, as millions of folks tried to log in or register accounts simultaneously.

Last year, the Christmas weekend saw app sales shoot through the roof at a 52% increase over the previous one, and 2017 year will likely see a similar breakthrough, as Google runs its 12 Days of Play promo on the best apps and games of 2017, while Apple has $0.99 movie rentals and other App Store discounts queued up without much ado. The fun part, however, is that the record-breaking sales don't occur over Christmas, but rather on New Year's Day, when people are lying on the couch recuperating from the festivities, toying with their new gear. On the first of January alone, users spent $240 million in the App Store this year, and there may be a run up to that day now, too, as you can see in the trends chart uptick below.

Both Apple and Google are now including curated collections, reviews or editor picks of the most notable software for iOS or Android, respectively, making it increasingly easy to find and enjoy apps and games, so we will keep our eyes on the stats that come out on New Year's Day to gauge if app downloads set another record on the tenth anniversary year of the App Store that started it all.



source: CNBC