You can measure the raging iOS vs Android battle in any way you like — units sold, market share, profit margin, number of bugs on launch day, and so on — and IBM has been busy crunching the numbers to offer up a new metric. According to the company, iOS users splashed more cash on Thanksgiving than their Android counterparts, pointing to a more wealthy set of customers.
The average amount spent on a purchase by Apple users was $118.57. Those toting handsets running Google’s mobile operating system, meanwhile, spent an average of $95.25 on each item they picked up. That’s a difference of $23.32, or about one-fortieth of the price of the most expensive iPhone 6 Plus.
“Apple has a strong hold on online shopping,” Jay Henderson, director of IBM Smarter Commerce, told CNN. “IPhone and iPad buyers tend to be slightly more affluent and more comfortable with technology.” Spending amounts decreased over the course of the day, presumably as people slept off the effects of too much turkey or settled down in front of a movie.
IBM offered up some more interesting analysis for those with an interest in online spending habits. Android devices may have more of a share of the market, but Apple users are three times more likely to make a purchase on their device, something that will have Google Play bosses concerned. Half of all shopping done on Thursday in the U.S. was done on a mobile device — back in 2010, that figure was just 6.5 percent.
Around $254 million sales were recorded on Thursday from smartphones and tablets, according to Adobe’s calculations, but the old traditional computer isn’t dead yet — those who were browsing and shopping from a laptop or desktop accounted for 47.6 percent of all traffic and spent an average of $132.48 per order, even higher than the figure for Apple iOS users.
[Header image courtesy of LDprod / Shutterstock.com]
