If you saw a can’t-miss Thanksgiving or Black Friday discount on an item and made the purchase on your smartphone or tablet, you are part of a quickly growing set of consumers, according to Adobe. The company’s latest data shows that nearly 1 in 3 online purchases on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday happened on mobile devices.
Adobe’s 2014 Digital Index Online Shopping data indicates that 29 percent of sales on Thanksgiving happened on smartphones or tablets, up from 21 percent last year. Meanwhile, 27 percent of Black Friday sales took place on mobile devices, up from 24 percent in 2013.
Smartphones, which usually account for a significantly smaller portion of the mobile sales pie, accounted for 13 percent of online purchases, nearly double its 7 percent share last year. Tablets accounted for 16 percent of online sales during this time, up from 14 percent.
Echoing findings from IBM, Adobe reports that iOS users (79 percent) drove nearly four times more mobile sales revenue than Android users (21 percent).
Adobe’s report also highlights that Thanksgiving Day saw average discounts of 25.2 percent, which was 1.2 percent lower than last year’s discounts.
When it came to social media-driven orders, Adobe reports that the average order value (AOV) from sales coming directly from Facebook was $114.45, followed by Pinterest with an AOV of $93.20 and Twitter with an AOV of $90.74.
4K TVs saw the largest month-over-month jump in social media buzz, as mentions of Sony and Samsung surged 350 percent. Fitbit was the king of wearable devices with 100,000 social media mentions on Thanksgiving and Black Friday. The iPhone 6 led the smartphone category.
Adobe reports that Thanksgiving Day sales hit $1.3 billion this year, while Black Friday sales hit $2.4 billion. The company forecasts that Cyber Monday will surpass Black Friday in online sales.
Although billed as having a "full HD" display, the tablet has a 1,280x800-pixel resolution. Considerably lower than what you might find from LG or HTC today, this screen resolution is a key reason for the lower price.
For power, the Ellipsis runs an unnamed 1.5GHz quad-core processor, and has a 5.0-megapixel rear camera and a 5,000mAh battery. Verizon plays it close to the vest for a number of finer details, even including the tablet's manufacturer. A peek at the user manual, however, reveals Quanta Computer as the company behind the curtain, the same company responsible for making the Amazon Kindle Fire tablets.
In terms of software, this Ellipsis tablet appears to run a pretty lean version of Android 4.4 KitKat with a number of Verizon apps preinstalled.
The tablet retails for $250 outright or 24 payments of $10.41 per month. Customers can, for a limited time, scoop up the tablet for $149.99 with a two-year service agreement.
A Nexus 9 from HTC would make a lot of sense from Google’s perspective: Partnering with the company would give kudos to the work it has done progressing Android device design with its HTC One range of smartphones, which remain among the best Android hardware available in terms of the quality of their build. And it would mean avoiding leaning too heavily on existing Nexus partners like Samsung and LG. It would also mean a return to the source – HTC crafted the first consumer Android device, after all.
HTC hasn’t made a tablet since its failed Flyer, however, and that means it’s been out of the game for a few years. The company ceased its tablet production plans after finding a hard time gaining any significant traction, but noted back they made the move official in 2012 that it could re-enter the market if it believes it could significantly contribute to the space. The company also said that it would be “watching [tablets] very, very closely” in the meantime.
Pairing with Google on a re-entry to the market does a couple of things for HTC: First, it gives it a bump in terms of marketing and distribution channels. Second, it alleviates a big chunk of the risk, as no one expects Nexus devices to be huge sellers, and Google shoulders at least some of the responsibility for the devices.
Whether or not a Nexus 9 can do well is another question altogether. Android tablets have been making progress over time, but there still isn’t a single model you can point to as a true competitor to Apple’s iPad. An HTC Nexus slate is also unlikely to rise to such lofty heights, but if the company can manage to pull off a tablet as well-designed as the HTC One, we should see something that can at least inject some life into a somewhat tired category.
