IBM: Mobile retail traffic to double during 2011 holiday season

Mobile retail traffic will more than double during the 2011 holiday shopping season, with 15 percent of U.S. consumers who log onto retailer websites during the next several weeks doing so via mobile device, according to a new IBM Coremetrics Benchmark forecast.

All online sales in November will experience a year-over-year growth of between 12 percent and 15 percent, IBM forecasts. Almost 11 percent of consumer visits to retailer websites in October 2011 originated on a mobile device, up from 4.2 percent a year earlier; in addition, mobile transactions accounted for 9.6 percent of online sales last month, increasing from 3.4 percent in October 2010.

IBM anticipates that Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android smartphone owners will generate almost as much mobile retail traffic as Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iOS owners this season. In October, the iPhone yielded 4 percent of retail traffic, followed by Android devices at 3.5 percent. Apple's iPad is also driving mobile commerce--according to IBM, iPad sales conversion rates reached 6.8 percent in October, almost double the overall mobile device conversion rate of 3.6 percent.

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