Apple iPad Leads 2012 Thanksgiving, Black Friday Online Sales; Accounts For 88% Of Tablet Shopping

Apple devices, including the iPad and the iPhone, dominated online buying during this holiday season on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday, according to a report by IBM.

As far as data from IBM’s Digital Analytics Benchmark go, online sales were up 17.4 percent and 20.7 percent from 2011 on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday respectively. But the biggest surge came from mobile consumers, led by the iPad, the report stated.

Here are some key highlights of Apple-oriented findings from the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark:

Mobile Shopping: Mobile purchases soared with 24 percent of U.S. consumers using a mobile device to visit a retailer's site, up from 14.3 percent in 2011. Mobile sales exceeded 16 percent, up from 9.8 percent in 2011.

The Apple Factor: Apple’s iPad generated more traffic than any other tablet or smartphone, reaching nearly 10 percent of online shopping. This was followed by iPhone at 8.7 percent and Android 5.5 percent.

The iPad Factor: The iPad dominated tablet traffic at 88.3 percent followed by the Barnes and Noble Nook at 3.1 percent, Amazon Kindle at 2.4 percent and the Samsung Galaxy at 1.8 percent.

With only 5.5 percent of shopping-related browsing on Android devices during the holiday season, the report did give a bit of shock given the platform’s rapid growth in market share.

Android claimed 75 percent of the smartphones sold in the third quarter, compared to Apple's 15 percent, according to IDC.

“The reasons for such numbers will be disputed across both sides of the iOS and Android divide, with some claiming that those carrying iPhones or iPads tend to have a higher disposal income,” a Redmond Pie report has stated. “We’re not entirely sure that’s the full story, but it could well be a small part of it.”

Here are some more findings:

· Overall 58 percent of consumers used smartphones compared to 41 percent who used tablets to surf for bargains on Black Friday.

· Shoppers referred from Social Networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube generated 0.34 percent of all online sales on Black Friday, a decrease of more than 35 percent from 2011.

Below is the IBM infographic, summarizing the findings [via Fortune]