The mobile shopping boom is here.
Mobile commerce sales in the United States topped $10 billion in the first half of 2013 and could pass $25 billion by the end of the year, according to new survey data from comScore. By comparison, mobile commerce hit $8.3 billion the first half of 2012 and $20.1 billion for the full year.
Andrew Lipsman, VP of industry analysis at comScore, notes in a blog post that we may have reached an "inflection point" in the past year, "with many consumers now expanding use of their mobile devices for more advanced functions -– including digital commerce transactions." Mobile commerce, he says, now accounts for one of every $10 spent online and is growing at a faster pace than traditional e-commerce.
According to the report, smartphones still account for the majority of money spent on mobile devices, presumably because there is a much larger user base for smartphones than tablets. However, more money was spent on tablets on a per user basis:
comScore isn't the only researcher to be bullish on growth in mobile shopping. eMarketer recently released a report stating that mobile would account for 25% of all online sales by 2017 and Forrester predicts mobile commerce will hit $31 billion in the next five years.