Digital agency Visualsoft has done a bit of number crunching and come to the conclusion that the value of UK commercial transactions over mobile almost doubled in the second half of last year.

Visualsoft got the data from over 1,600 UK retailers that it helps with their e-commerce. It found that the value of mobile commerce sales increased by 85% year-on-year in 2H 2017 and that the volume of mobile commerce transactions increased by 78%. Black Friday experienced sales value three times higher than the average for the period.

“Mobile sales are booming as consumers increasingly look for the convenience and flexibility offered by shopping on-the-go,” said Visualsoft Chief Sales Officer Tim Johnson. “However, if a potential customer visits a mobile site which is difficult to use, it’s unlikely that they will make a purchase. Retailers must therefore take steps to ensure they are developing fully-optimised mobile sites to take advantage of this growth.

“Harnessing the power of social media is also critical. Huge numbers of consumers use phones and tablets to browse apps such as Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat on a daily basis, so a strong brand offering on these platforms, with a simple and effective click-through journey can provide a massive boost to sales.”

Meanwhile App Annie has also released its data for Q4 2017, which also pointed towards a booming mobile economy. In that quarter people downloaded more apps than ever before at nearly 27 million across iOS and Google Play worldwide, a growth of 7% year over year. The value of those downloads rose by 20% y-o-y to $17 billion worldwide.

The two charts below provide great illustration of the contrasting demographic between Android and iOS. Android is the clear leader in download volume but iOS is still way ahead in value, indicating that iPhone users are, on average, far more affluent than Android ones. This is hardly surprising when you consider how much more expensive iOS devices are than average Android ones, but impressive nonetheless.