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Report says that for first time, online shoppers primarily interact with brands via mobile

In August 2014, mobile devices generated 51 percent of all online retail visits, the majority of which occurred on Apple devices. In 2010, only four percent of all online retail visits were mobile.

September 8, 2014

Online shopping has reached a mobile tipping point: For the first time ever, according to Branding Brand's Mobile Commerce Index report, the majority of consumers are visiting retail websites on smartphones and tablets rather than on traditional desktop and laptop computers.

In August 2014, mobile devices generated 51 percent of all online retail visits, the majority of which occurred on Apple devices. In 2010, only four percent of all online retail visits were mobile.

Issued monthly, the Mobile Commerce Index identifies retail trends across a consistent sample of 26 major North American brands in various industries, including apparel, health and beauty, and home goods.

"In four short years, our data has tracked the rapid rise of the mobile consumer from a small fraction of users in 2010 to this moment, where the majority of online retail visitors now originate via smartphones and tablets," said Chris Mason, Branding Brand co-founder and CEO. "This fundamental shift in consumer behavior from desktop to mobile happened with unprecedented speed and represents the greatest opportunity in retail since the advent of the Internet.

"Not only is the majority of online visits coming from smartphones and tablets, they are occurring on Apple devices. This August, we saw 61 percent of all smartphone visits and 81 percent of all tablet visits occur on iOS devices. Based on past adoption trends of Apple's newly released operating systems, you can fully expect the majority of holiday traffic to come from users running iOS 8, and it hasn't even launched yet."