The holiday season has proved to be very popular for mobile social gaming networks.

OpenFeint announced it had gained nearly 1.4 million new users over the four day Christmas period, while rival Scoreloop just has announced it gained 1.3 million over the responding week.

On the up

As part of this activity, the iOS, Android and bada network got an all-time spike of new users on Christmas Day of over 209 percent compared to its November average.

Still, what it was most pleased about was the growth in its virtual currency. Purchases were up 216 percent compared to the November average.

In all cases, growth was higher on the Android platform.

Hungry social gamers

"This holiday season, consumers made it more clear than ever their interest in smartphones and appetite for mobile games," said Marc Gumpinger, CEO of Scoreloop.

"The trend will no doubt continue through 2011 and the 216 percent jump in virtual currency sales we have seen is just one of the indicators that this will be the year where the freemium and micro-transaction business model really takes off.

"We're excited to be leading monetisation of mobile games and offering launch power to a rapidly increasing user base."