Network World - Sales and traffic from mobile devices to online retailers during the holidays doubled over 2012 with Apple iPhone and iPad users leading the charge, according to research from IBM.
Specifically IBM found:
Sales from mobile devices doubled, reaching 11% versus 5.5% in December 2010.
14.6% of all online sessions on a retailer's site were initiated from a mobile device, more than double the rate of 5.6% over the same period in 2010.
Apple's iPhone and iPad ranked one and two for mobile device retail traffic (5.2% and 4.3% respectively). Android was third at 4.1%. Collectively iPhone and iPad accounted for 9.5% over the course of the month.
Shoppers using the iPad also continued to drive more retail purchases than any other device with conversion rates reaching 6.3% compared to 3.1% for all mobile devices.
BACKGROUND: The top 10 strategic technology trends for 2012
Overall, online retailers saw 7.5% growth in December 2011 over the same period last year, IBM stated. IBM's findings follow a strong November where Black Friday 2011 and Cyber Monday 2011 delivered double-digit growth over 2010.
Such numbers of course are not entirely unexpected. Gartner recently predicted that by 2015 as much as 50% of company Web sales will come through social and mobile applications. The increase will come as e-commerce vendors offer new context-aware, mobile-based applications.
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