Study: Smartphone revenue grows 141% in Q3

Petaluma, Calif. -– Revenue coming from smartphones grew 141% year-over-year during the third quarter of fiscal 2014. According to a study from e-commerce platform provider Market Live, cultural shifts in shopping habits are revealing changes in traditional metrics; for example, mobile is creating a trend toward lower conversion rates and shorter time-on-site metrics caused by more shoppers researching products on their mobile phones and completing their purchases at a later time.



Highlights from the Q3 Performance Index report include:



• Traffic coming from smartphones is up 62%.

• Social recommendations now account for 2% of all traffic and 1% of all revenue.

• Total traffic across all MarketLive customers increased 9.7%.

• Organic search made gains as both a traffic source (up 13%) and revenue source (up 6%).

• Email as a traffic and as a revenue source both increased 24%.



“We’ve been watching social recommendations for some time, waiting for it to register a significant contribution to revenues at the cash register,” said Ken Burke, founder and CEO of MarketLive. “We’re finally seeing a small-but-tangible signal now in our Q3 Performance Index, and that result is corroborated by our recent Holiday Survey results as well. The strong performance in mobile is something we’ve been expecting, as mobile commerce has been growing dramatically for several quarters already. At this point, it should send a cautionary note to all merchants that a strong mobile strategy is no longer optional, but rather a necessary and critical component for brick-and-mortar and online retailers alike.”