IBM: Christmas Big For Online Shopping, iOS Destroys Android Again

Christmas means a lot of things to a lot of people, but one undercurrent is noticeable: shopping. Though most stores are shut for the day, we can still go online, and we've likely got a series of gift cards in-hand which give us license to buy. In our mobile world, location doesn't matter much, either. Great apps from retailers mean the mobile shopping experience is often better than on the desktop, and the latest numbers from IBM reflect as much, showing mobile shopping traffic is on the rise.

Of all online shopping traffic on Christmas Day, mobile accounted for over half of that. 57.1% of us went searching for stuff via mobile, up 18.6% over last year.

We're also buying more via mobile, with 34.8% of online sales coming from smartphones and tablets. That's up 20.4% over last year, suggesting Developers are getting their in-app purchase schemes together nicely.

Apple's iOS brought in 39.1% of all mobile traffic, doubling up on Android's 17.7%. Even more important for Developers and retailers is iOS accounting for 27% of all online sales. Despite its massive market share, Android was only responsible for 7.6% of all online sales Christmas Day.

As larger smartphones edge out tablets, we're turning to them for more of our shopping as well as other tasks like gaming. IBM says 40.6% of all Christmas Day online traffic was from smartphones. Tablets only saw a 15.9% share. Interestingly enough, we purchased more via tablets; 18.4% of sales came form the largest screens, compared to 16.3% of purchases via smartphones.

Still, when making a purchase, we prefer the desktop experience. Though mobile brought in the lion's share of traffic, the desktop accounted for 65.2% of sales. We also spent more via PC on average, spending $107.72 versus $88.70 on mobile devices.

Source: IBM