Looking at spending for the first 56 days of the November-December holiday season, comScore reported that so far a record $35.3 billion has been spent online. Last year spending for the same period stood at a shade over $30 billion.
comScore noted that in recent years there has been a significant increase in Christmas Day online purchases of digital content and subscriptions as consumers waste no time in filling their newly acquired smartphones and tablets with enough content to last a lifetime.
Indeed, comScore’s data showed that sales of digital content and subscription on an average day during the holiday season accounted for 2.8 percent of all online sales, but on Christmas Day this rocketed to more than 20 percent.
comScore’s findings back up recent data from research firm Flurry Analytics which found that on December 25 around 6.8 million new iOS and Android devices were activated, all hungry for content.
Flurry’s data also showed that more apps were downloaded to iOS and Android devices on Christmas Day than on any other day ever—around 242 million in all. Of course, a great number of those could have been free downloads, but the figures suggest a fair few app developers have done pretty darn well this holiday season.
And who knows, online spending may have also been given a boost by all the extra booze that traditionally flows around Christmas time.
