Consumers spent $1 trillion more in online retail sales last year than they did 10 years prior, according to new data from Comscore, a measurement and analytics company. Ultimately, the data shows that mobile commerce sales hit a new peak in 2023’s fourth quarter.

In Comscore’s newly released State of Digital Commerce report, the authors found that 2023 was the year with the most digital commerce spending yet, and that its Q4 underscored that record activity with the highest quarter ever for ecommerce sales. For the full year, mobile commerce sales in 2023 reached $448 billion, according to the report. Total online retail spending in the U.S., meanwhile, surpassed $1.295 trillion in 2023.

Looking back, online retail spending reached a relatively small $235 billion in 2013. Online retail spending eventually crossed the $1 trillion threshold in 2022, according to Comscore data.

Comscore data shows that grocery was the highest-grossing category for ecommerce in 2023, reaching $266 billion. Of that, more than 10% came from mobile commerce ($28.6 billion). Apparel & Accessories was the only other category to surpass $200 billion in 2023 ($204 billion). Similarly, more than 10% of Apparel & Accessories sales came from mobile devices ($24.2 billion).

Comscore shares mobile ecommerce sales trends

Until 2023, only fourth quarters drew $100 billion or more in mobile spending — $101 billion in Q4 2021 and $127.5 billion in Q4 2022. Then, in 2023, U.S. consumers spent hundreds of billions, according to Comscore data.

Q2 2023 mobile sales were just shy of $100 billion — at $99.1 billion. The other three quarters exceeded $103 billion each in mobile sales.

Q4 2023 sales hit $389.2 billion, 17% year-over-year growth for the quarter. $141.4 billion of that came from mobile sales, and $247.8 billion came from desktop. Both totals set new records. They also represented 10.9% and 21.1% growth for mobile and desktop sales, respectively.

Mobile represented 36.3% of total online retail spending in Q4 2023, down from its previous Q4 peak of 38.4% in 2022. Since Q3 2019, mobile commerce has represented at least 31% of online retail sales each quarter, according to Comscore’s measurements.

Nevertheless, despite the increases in mobile commerce spending, desktop-based ecommerce sales grew at nearly double the rate of mobile in Q4 2023. That quarter, desktop sales grew 21.1% year over year, while mobile commerce sales grew 10.9% year over year.

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