Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store both saw strong growth in the fourth quarter of 2012, as the bumper Christmas holiday sales period took effect.

According to app store analytics firm App Annie, from Q3 to Q4 Google Play saw its revenue double, while the App Store saw growth of one-fifth. But while App Store growth was slower, it still gained more in absolute terms, due to the larger size of the store to start with.

In December the App Store generated three and a half times more revenue than Google Play.

The top five countries in terms of App Store revenue remained the US, Japan, the UK, Australia and Canada, which accounted for 60 percent of revenue.

App Annie noted that China moved from eighth place at the beginning of the quarter to sixth by the end of it. With Apple CEO Tim Cook recently stating the company is focusing more on China, more growth is likely.

Japan generated the most revenue on Google Play during the quarter, followed by the US and South Korea. The three markets contributed almost half of app revenue between them.

The top publishers in the App Store in terms of app downloads were Apple, Google and Electronic Arts. Electronic Arts topped the chart for revenue.

Facebook topped the Google Play download chart, followed by NHN (developer of the LINE messaging app) and games developer Rovio. NHN topped the revenue chart, followed by social games company DeNA.

Games dominated with 95 percent of Google Play revenue in South Korea coming from the category, with 88 percent in Japan and 76 percent in the US.