Mobile E-commerce sales now exceed desktop. But only in two countries, is yours one of them?!

Chart of the Day: Share of Smartphone vs desktop retail sales

As our regularly updated stats on mobile trends shows, we are now well past the tipping point where mobile visits to consumers exceed desktop visits, at least for consumer brands and e-commerce sites (B2B is quite different). Yet while smartphone usage has been climbing dramatically in all countries, the same can't be said for smartphone conversion rates which are typically only one quarter to one third of desktop conversion. Mobile conversion varies on many factors related to buyer behaviour and culture in different countries, but the effect has been the same in different countries with the mobile share of retail e-commerce transactions being less than 50%.

Yet this percentage mobile commerce transaction figure is climbing too and the latest research from Criteos' retail customers in different countries shows that in two, the UK and Japan it now exceeds 50% with Australia and South Korea not far behind.

Other countries are a surprisingly long way behind with countries like the United States, Germany and the Netherlands in the 35 to 40% range and others like Brazil, Russia, Italy and France at 30% or less. This goes to show the opportunity for future mobile commerce growth in many countries. It's interesting to speculate what the figure will be in each of these countries in 5 or 10 years time - will it continue to grow, or is there a maximum ceiling of 60, 70 or 80%?

• Source: Criteo: State of Cross-device commerce
• Sample: Criteo customers using retargeting in all retail categories, but excluding mobile apps
• Recommended Smart Insights resource: Mobile marketing strategy guide

Contributer : Smart Insights