Black Friday Online Retail Sales Are Up 24.3%

Sites include Android.com , Apple.com . Published on November 29th, 2011. Written by Anthony West.

People might be losing jobs, houses and heaven knows what else, but one thing is certain about the good folks in the US: “shopping is a must, no matter what the circumstances”. Early indications are that Thanksgiving shopping 2011 has been very good—and according to some sources better than predicted. Thanksgiving sales are reportedly up 39.3% upon last year’s figures, with Black Friday enjoying another stellar year, up 24.3% upon 2010 numbers.

People seem to be stepping up mobile shopping a gear too. According to data coming from IBM Cometrics, mobile traffic sales accounted for 14.6% of all retail sales compared to the 5.7% recorded for Black Friday 2010. PayPal in particular, is reporting strong growth in mobile sales with an almost 500% increase in mobile payments processed through its platform.

In terms of devices leading mobile shopping, Apple came out on top, beating out Android who ranked a distant third behind the iPhone and iPad respectively. There’s very little surprise there really; Apple devices have always been the preserver of people with reliable disposable incomes. So it sort of makes sense that the chunk of these device owners would contribute heavily to the surging mobile sales across all sales events (i.e. Black Friday etc.)

Did you spend big this past Black Friday? Share a few of your purchases with us in the comments below.