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It Was a Merry Mobile Christmas

Nearly 35 percent of Christmas day online sales occurred over phones and tablets.

Shutterstock / Wavebreakmedia

Many of us celebrated our Christmas Day bounties in that time-honored way — by buying still more stuff.

Online sales on Dec. 25 rose 8.3 percent from the prior year, as consumers rushed to cash in their gift cards and take advantage of holiday deals, according to IBM’s Digital Analytics Benchmark. But the real surge this season was in mobile.

Smartphones and tablets accounted for more than a third of online sales on Christmas Day and 57 percent of all online traffic. Those figures were both up around 20 percent from the prior year.

While more people browsed on smartphones, more purchases were actually made on tablets, which accounted for 18.4 percent of online sales versus 16.3 percent for phones, IBM said. Apple iOS users represented more than double the traffic of Android users, and spent $30 more per order on average.

IBM wasn’t the only company that spotted a surge in mobile shopping. Amazon said it doubled sales made through its app this holiday season.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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