As growth in sales of tablets levels off while smartphone sales continues to jump, retailers are seeing a significant switch in mobile commerce activity: More shoppers have become comfortable with buying goods on their smartphones, and more digital shoppers now have smartphones, driving increases in sales on smartphones. In fact, the smartphone is the dominant device in m-commerce today, finds digital marketing firm Criteo.

“Mobile commerce is growing like a weed,” says Jonathan Wolf, chief product officer at Criteo. “In just the last three months there was a 10% increase in mobile transactions here in the U.S. Smartphones are now the majority of mobile transactions, and better mobile sites and apps along with the growth in adoption of smartphones with larger screens is only going to accelerate this trend.”

For its “Q1 2015 State of Mobile Commerce Report,” Criteo analyzed $160 billion in digital retail sales worldwide from its 3,000 clients. The report finds:

• The majority of mobile transactions in the U.S. and other major countries stems from smartphones. Increased comfort level with purchasing and larger screen sizes are credited for the increase.
• Mobile is now the majority of all e-commerce transactions in Japan and South Korea. By the end of 2015, mobile’s share of e-commerce transactions will reach 33% in the U.S. and 40% globally.
• U.S. mobile transactions grew 10% in the last three months; growth continues across all retail categories, with top quartile retailers continuing to outperform the rest.
• Consumers now view the same amount of products on both desktops and smartphones, but with lower add-to-basket and purchase rates on smartphones.

“The huge growth in mobile transactions over the past quarter shows that consumers are now very comfortable purchasing on smartphones across all categories,” Wolf says. “To best convert mobile shoppers on smartphones into buyers, smart retailers need a great mobile web site experience, and a robust digital marketing strategy. This year, we’ll see a growing focus on cross-device advertising on both mobile and desktop to generate personalized recommendations across consumers’ devices that deliver sales wherever the customer may be.”

Follow Bill Siwicki, editor of the Internet Retailer 2015 Mobile 500 and editor, mobile, of Internet Retailer, on Twitter at @IRmcommerce and @MobileStrat360B.

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