Apple wins online Christmas Day

Retailers’ with robust mobile e-commerce capabilities were able to cash in on Christmas Day as sales increased 8.3% compared to the prior year, according to the latest update from IBM’s Digital Analytics Benchmark report.



In addition to the 8.3 percent in online Christmas Day sales, IBM said mobile device traffic increased 18.6 percent to account for 57.1 percent of all Christmas day e-commerce traffic. Mobile sales increased 20.4 percent and accounted for 34.8 percent of all online sales, according to IBM.



It was a case of shoppers using smartphones to browse and tablets to buy with smartphones accounting for 40.6 percent of total online traffic compared to 15.9 percent for tablets. Meanwhile, tablets accounted for 18.4 percent of online sales, compared to smartphones, which accounted for 16.3 percent of total online sales.



However, just because mobile surged in popularity, IBM noted that the desktop is not dead. In fact, desktop PC traffic represented 42.6 percent of all online traffic, and 65.2 percent of all online sales. Further, consumers spent more money on their desktops with an average order value of $107.72 compared to their mobile devices at $88.70, according to IBM.



When shoppers were engaged via mobile, Apple ruled Christmas Day. Apple iOS users averaged $97.28 per order compared to $67.40 for Android users and Apple iOS traffic accounted for 39.1 percent of total online traffic, more than double that of Android, which drove 17.7 percent of all online traffic. Apple iOS sales accounted for 27 percent of total online sales, nearly four times that of Android, which drove 7.6 percent of all online sales.