A record-number of new devices activated on Christmas morning is leading to a tidal wave of new mobile application downloads setting a record for the most applications downloaded, 242 million to be exact.

Activations topped 6.8 million, a 140 percent jump over Christmas from 2010, which only had 2.8 million activations, according to Flurry Analytics, which creates tools that thousands of shoppers use to track usage of their mobile applications. Consumers’ downloaded 242 million applications that day, an increase of 125 percent downloaded the same day last year.

The numbers were strong overall for both iOS and Android. Apple’s (News - Alert) App Store, which exceeded the 10 Billion download mark in January, put us on track to post more than 10 billion downloads for the 2011 year alone. The Android (News - Alert) Market is also setting records. Over the past 7 months, it has achieved more than 7 billion downloads, which more than triples its life-to-date downloads of 3 billion which was reached in May of 2011.

If those rates continue, both operating systems are generating roughly one billion downloads a month, or the equivalent of 33 million per day. Flurry found that on Dec. 25, it registered 242 million app downloads.

Determining who did better, iOS or Android that might be a little bit trickier. “Frankly, they’re neck and neck,” said Peter Farago, the vice president of marketing for Flurry, who adds that the company chooses not to share that specific data with the public.

However, what is public is Android’s share of the smartphone market, which was 43.7 percent vs. 27.3 percent for iOS in August. Flurry, who tracked app downloads for all of Christmas Day, found a big increase at both 9 a.m. and 11 am. The jump at those times remained high until about midnight.

On the average day in December, 1.5 million phones were activated, but on Christmas 6.8 million were activated again representing a 353 percent spike. Last year, Christmas held the previous single-day record with 2.8 million devices downloaded, which has now been trampled by the new record-setting numbers.

Apple is also claiming they say 12.5 times the iOS devices were activated over this Christmas than past weekends. For comparison sake: there were 21 times more iPods compared to 14 times more iPhones on Christmas Day.

Apple is said to have another record setting quarter after a successful fiscal fourth quarter for the company claiming they earned $28.27 billion in revenue with the holiday quarter expected to be even better.

The “appy Christmas,” as people are calling it, is expected to continue. Flurry is predicting between Christmas and New Years consumers will download an additional billion applications between both iOS and Android markets.