Record 22% of US Black Friday sales via smartphone - Adobe

Mobile phone users in the US spent $1.5 billion purchasing items on their handsets over the course of the Thanksgiving public holiday, according to stats from Adobe.

Mobile shopping saw strong growth and now makes up 34% of all sales, but the role of tablets continued to decline. Tablets drove 15% of sales on Black Friday, down 2% on last year. Smartphones generated a record 22% share of sales, 70% more than in 2014. Of these iPhones and iPads continued to drive the majority of mobile sales, according to Adobe.

The pricing strategies used by mobile marketing companies were increasingly central to the driving of trade, with products being sold online being discounted by an average of 24%. Social media and display ads were the ‘hidden gems’ for the highest online discounts, according to Adobe, but less than 3% of consumers took advantage of them on Black Friday.

US consumers turned into digital shopping ninjas this holiday season, claimed said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst at Adobe Digital Index. “Retailers will continue to adjust to a huge influx of smartphone shoppers,” said Gaffney.

On Black Friday, mobile devices drove 53% of shopping visits (40% on smartphones, 13% on tablets) resulting in $583 million in sales. Android phones generated 33% of smartphone sales. For the first time, mobile exceeded desktop shopping visits with 57% of all web site traffic coming from devices.

Strategy Analytics analyst Nitesh Patel said it was no surprise that consumers are using their phones to make purchases given that they’re now portable point of sale devices. “It’s worth pointing out that while Adobe’s figures are impressive I expect the market average for share of e-commerce purchases on mobile will be lower than this,” said Patel. “Adobe’s customers tend to be larger businesses that have the resources to optimize their mobile properties to encourage mobile commerce. There is certainly a big m-commerce divide.”

However, the Adobe data shows is that more consumers are willing to use mobile to buy than ever, said Patel, and retailers will push to optimize for mobile in the future.