Flurry: Mobile users' app usage increased 68% year-on-year during the 2013 Thanksgiving season

Flurry, a mobile analytics company, recently released a report on the use of apps by mobile users on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. The report shows that during the Thanksgiving weekend, mobile device users conducted 1.3 billion app sessions, an increase of 68% compared to last year, with photo, video and music apps accounting for most of the usage.

Flurry detailed in its report that U.S. app usage during the peak Thanksgiving period increased 25% week-over-week compared to the past two years. In 2011 and 2012, the company saw growth rates of only 20%, meaning that mobile device users are relying more on their apps when shopping on Thanksgiving and Black Friday this year.

Flurry believes that mobile apps have become a Thanksgiving tradition. As we can see from the figure below, on Thanksgiving Day, the proportion of app (media, game and shopping apps) responses increased, and basically declined after the holiday. They tracked 400,000 apps on 1.2 billion devices worldwide to obtain these data.