Black Friday Sales Numbers: PayPal Reports Mobile Shopping Now Accounts For Third Of Holiday Shopping

According to new data from PayPal, mobile devices contributed to a third of online shopping on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. PayPal’s figures confirm its numbers are notable because its network reached 192 million active customers and 15 million active merchants.

Black Friday topped Thanksgiving in mobile sales. PayPal notes the total payment per second on Friday was $15,507, compared to $10,781 on Thanksgiving. In addition, Black Friday shoppers spent more, with $62.35 spent per customer on Black Friday, compared to $58.51 on Thanksgiving.

PayPal also found shoppers were spending most of their money on fashion purchases, but that only goes to show the types of merchants that were popular in its network, compared to a larger shopping trend. What’s selling will vary by retailer.

Adobe also reported Black Friday online sales hit a record of $3 billion this year, with more than a billion coming from mobile devices. Adobe also notes this year’s top-selling electronics were Apple iPads, Samsung 4K TVs, the Apple Macbook Air, LG TVs and Microsoft Xbox One. Both Adobe’s and PayPals report show how Black Friday stretches across a few days, instead of taking place on Friday, and then again on Cyber Monday.

Consumers have expanded their online shopping to cover the four days between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, according to another report from IBM. From Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday, global sales have gone up almost 20 last year, while U.S. went up by 9 percent, said IBM.

IBM also reported November and December 2016 sales will increase by nearly 14 percent since 2015. The report comes from data pulled by more than 17,000 companies, including the top 10 in the Fortune 500, which is enough to indicate online shopping trends. IBM also noted Black Friday and Thanksgiving saw larger sales than what’s being estimated for Cyber Monday.

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