Consumer demand for mobile apps showed no sign of letting up in the period after Christmas, a key sales period for smartphones and tablets, according to analysis by CCS Insight and Distimo.

Their analysis confirms that Apple remains the dominant market leader in terms of downloads, catalogue size and revenue. The iPhone and iPad app stores generated daily revenue of $3.34 million and $2.07 million respectively in January 2012. Google Play (formerly Android Market) saw a 31 percent rise in daily revenue in January 2012, to $679,000 across smartphones and tablets. Other platforms are racing to secure third position, with Amazon and Microsoft recording the biggest growth in catalogue size.

"The strong growth in downloads and revenue for Apple and Android comes at a time when consumers typically rein back their spending after Christmas", said Paolo Pescatore, Director of Applications and Content at CCS Insight.

A surge of in-app purchases was behind much of the growth. Buying extra levels or features within a game or application is rapidly becoming the principal form of spending in this area. In-app purchases accounted for more than 60 percent of revenue across the iPad, iPhone and Google stores in January 2012. The revenue generated by applications that feature in-apps increased in February to 73 percent for the top 200 highest-grossing Android and iPad applications, and a staggering 79 percent for the top 200 iPhone apps.

However, it is not all good news. Preliminary figures for February show a 27 percent drop in iPad downloads as people waited for the new iPad. This resulted in a $250,000 decrease compared with January's daily revenue figure.

"We believe this is no more than a short-term blip, but it clearly shows that many buyers of the new iPad already own an original iPad or an iPad2. It's a real demonstration of the loyalty of Apple customers", commented Mr Pescatore.