Black Friday & Cyber Monday Go Mobile: Traffic Crosses 50 Percent, Transactions Hit 30 Percent

If you’re one of the last-remaining mobile skeptics you will probably be converted by the torrent of data coming off Cyber-Weekend. Literally dozens of reports and stats showed a massive surge in both mobile traffic and transactions compared to last year.

At one point mobile traffic exceeded 50 percent of all US online traffic, while mobile transactions reached 30 percent on Black Friday according to one source. While mobile traffic and transactions didn’t stay at these levels consistently throughout the weekend, these are very significant milestones.

Mobile Traffic

By my imperfect calculation using a range of providers’ data points, over the course of the entire long weekend mobile devices (including tablets) drove and average of about 45 percent of all internet traffic.

On Thanksgiving, however, IBM reported that that mobile traffic exceeded PC internet traffic for the first time: 52.1 percent to 47.9 percent. On Black Friday IBM said mobile traffic come in at 49.6 percent; and on Cyber Monday it accounted for 41.2 percent of all traffic, up more than 30 percent over last year.

On Thanksgiving Monetate reported mobile traffic was 44 percent of all US internet traffic, dropping to 42 percent on Black Friday. And ecommerce platform ShopVisible said that on Cyber Monday mobile was responsible for 43 percent of all online traffic.

Mobile Commerce

As one might expect, mobile transactions did not quite mirror mobile traffic levels. However they were higher than expected in most cases.

Custora reported earlier today that smartphones and tablets generated 21.9 percent of online orders on Cyber Monday but 30.3 percent on Black Friday. Over the entire weekend, on average, mobile devices were responsible for 26.4 percent of online orders.

Ecommerce site Rakuten, which owns Buy.com, reported that over the entire Cyber-Weekend mobile devices generated about 25 percent of all online transactions. Similarly, Monetate said that mobile accounted for an average of 27.5 percent of online sales over Thanksgiving and Black Friday. IBM also reported that on Black Friday mobile devices drove 27.9 percent of total sales and 22 percent yesterday.

Adobe said that 29 percent of online sales on Thanksgiving came from mobile devices, dropping slightly to 27 percent on Black Friday.

Smartphones vs. Tablets

Even though tablets generate a lower percentage of traffic they are responsible for more sales than their smartphone brethren. This is changing somewhat as smartphone screens get larger.

IBM said that on Cyber Monday smartphones saw 28.5 percent of all traffic, while tablets captured 12.5 percent. In turn, tablets drove 12.9 percent of Cyber Monday sales vs. 9.1 percent for smartphones.

According to Adobe, tablets were responsible for 16 percent of ecommerce transactions on Black Friday, while smartphones drove 13 percent of overall ecommerce.

Rakuten reported that smartphones drove an average of 9 percent of transactions, while tablets generated roughly 16 percent in select online shopping categories.

iOS vs. Android

Most data sources saw a major gap between iOS and Android devices in terms of online sales. For example, Raukuten said that iOS devices accounted for 65 percent of smartphone-driven sales and 91 percent of tablet-related ecommerce.

Adobe said that iOS users drove 79 percent of sales while Android was responsible for 21 percent.

Custora echoed those figures, saying that “The vast majority of mobile shopping happened on Apple devices over the weekend,” with 78 percent coming from Apple smartphones and tablets and 21.6 percent coming from Android devices. However Android’s share is up this year vs. last year’s 15.4 percent according to Custora.

As you can see the specific figures vary though they’re all going in the same direction. We should continue to see mobile devices put up significant traffic and transaction numbers throughout the remainder of the holiday shopping season, which regrettably has only just started.