New data released by
comScore shows that in the US “4 out of 5” smartphone owners are visiting retail sites on their mobile devices. The total number of mobile-retail visitors was 85.9 million according to the measurement firm. Amazon was the leading retail destination with an audience of almost 50 million smartphone owners.
This makes perfect sense given the strength of Amazon’s brand and the early investments the company made in mobile and tablet app development. It is the site most often used in stores to check prices and product reviews. It is also the so-called “m-commerce” leader in the US.
By contrast many traditional US retailers have been relatively slow to seriously invest in mobile. Yet pure “e-tailers” are also disadvantaged because relatively few people do e-commerce on smartphones (tablets are different). Amazon and eBay are two major exceptions.
Speaking of which, eBay followed Amazon as the second most popular retailer on smartphones. Apple was next, followed by mostly traditional or multi-channel retailers.
ComScore’s demographic analysis of mobile retail site visitors found that “females accounted for a higher share of time spent on retail destinations at 53.4 percent of minutes on desktop computers and an even greater share of retail minutes on smartphones at 56.1 percent.” In addition, smartphone retail shoppers are younger than PC users and generally more affluent:
Smartphone shoppers were also more likely to be younger than their desktop counterparts with 70.7 percent of smartphone retail visitors under the age of 45 compared to 61.1 percent of desktop users . . . Smartphone retail audiences were more likely to reside in higher income households compared to desktop computer users, likely as a result of smartphone ownership skewing towards higher income segments compared to an average consumer. Among smartphone audiences accessing retail destinations, nearly 1 in every 3 had a household income of $100k or greater . . .
Finally comScore provided a breakdown by iPhone vs. Android visitors to these various sites.
ComScore says that 49 percent of Americans own smartphones, while Nielsen says the number is 55 percent. However among more higher-income users the number is closer to 70 percent.
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