Study: iOS users do 92 percent of mobile shopping
updated 02:00 pm EST, Fri December 23, 2011
Spend more on average than Android, desktop users
Apple mobile device users have accounted for more than 90 percent of online retail purchases originating from a mobile device so far this month, reports market analysis firm RichRelevance. The company collected data from 3.4 billion online shopping sessions from online US retailers between April and December of this year. The percentage is actually up from 88 percent at the start of the survey in April.
Though mobile shopping still represents a small percentage of total online retail dollars (just under four percent), that statistic has doubled in the past eight months, concurrent with the high sales figures for Apple's iPhone and iPad devices. Although more competition has entered the mobile space over the last year, with Android devices topping 130 million units, the shopping experience or demographic for Android buyers precludes them from being a significant presence in mobile shopping statistics compared to iOS shoppers.
The RichRelevance survey also found that iOS users spent the most on their average order, with a typical value of $123 versus a typical Android shopper's $101 purchase. Traditional desktop and notebook online buyers averaged $87 per order but also account for the vast majority of online transactions, which lowers the overall mean. Android's shockingly low percentage of mobile shopping sales may partially be explained by the fact that most Android devices aren't running the later releases of the OS, which may hinder their ability to use online retail sites or limit them in some cases to using "mobile versions" of sites that make shopping less attractive.
The study found that mobile devices are used for shopping most often on the weekend and when buyers don't have immediate access to their home computers. For example, use of mobile devices for shopping jumped 25 percent on weekends, and went up 40 percent over Thanksgiving, where it reached 24 percent of all online retail shoppers, the high point in the nine-month period surveyed.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Dec 2009
But of course...
If I had a malware-laden Android device, I'd be leery of using my credit card online, also.
If you think I'm joking, I'm not. I remember the mindset I used to have when I had other OS' in my house and pocket. I know that niggling feeling in the back of my mind that digs deeper than just "Am I sure I'm on an encrypted page and not a phishing site?", where you question the integrity of the last app you downloaded, web page visited, or email received.
It was a minor, niggling feeling, but it was always there.