Holiday e-commerce gains expected to match last year’s 15% rise

New York -- eMarketer projects that retail e-commerce holiday sales in the U.S. will rise about 15% again this year, matching last year's gains. In total, U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the holiday season — defined as November and December — are expected to reach $61.8 billion, up from $53.7 billion last year, according to the report.



As well, eMarketer estimates US retail e-commerce sales will grow 16.4% to $262.3 billion this year, with 23.5% ($61.8 billion) of this taking place in November and December.



M-commerce is expected to play an important part in overall digital holiday retail spending. eMarketer said it expects that mobile's share will reach 16% in 2013, up from a previous prediction of a 15% m-commerce share this year. M-commerce sales are expected to reach $41.68 billion this year and by 2017, retail sales made on mobile devices will climb to well over $100 billion, according to eMarketer.



Tablet retail m-commerce sales are expected to hit $26.05 billion, or 62.5% of US retail m-commerce sales overall. That's up from last year when tablets took a 56.2% share of m-commerce retail sales.