Akamai Releases 2015 Online Holiday Shopping Trends and Traffic Report

mCommerce plays a key role in driving the 2015 holiday season's results

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Feb 18, 2016, 06:30 ET

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 18, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the global leader in Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, today released its 2015 Online Holiday Shopping Trends and Traffic Report. The report provides insight into eCommerce and mCommerce trends globally during the 2015 holiday shopping season using data gathered from Akamai's Retail Net Usage Index (NUI) and Real User Monitoring (RUM) tools, which analyze the online and mobile traffic to global e-tailers' websites.

eCommerce shopping activity – especially on mobile devices – played a key role in driving the 2015 holiday season's results on both sides of the pond and was one of the highlights of the season. More specifically, mobile comprised more than half of all North American traffic and nearly half of all traffic in Europe. The data also shows that Black Friday and Cyber Monday gained significance in Europe, kicking off the holiday shopping season, while the holiday shopping period started later in North America. In general, the daily shopping peaks were consistent for North America and Europe—mid morning and late evening.

"For the first time ever, the majority of traffic to retail eCommerce sites came from mobile devices in North America," said Jason Miller, Chief Strategist of Commerce. "It's not enough to have a mobile site – retailers must build sites that provide a seamless experience across the many different screen sizes and devices while thinking strategically about the content that is consumed on those devices to make browsing and buying easy. They should also be enabling in-store mobile use for activities like coupon scanning and product research. Consumers are increasingly turning to mobile devices to shop, so if sites are not optimized, retailers stand to lose revenue and customer loyalty."

Other highlights from the report include:

For the first time, the majority (54 percent) of traffic to retail eCommerce sites came from mobile devices in North America
Traffic peaked on Cyber Monday with a weekend high of 23.5 million page views per minute (V/PM) at 9 p.m. EST
European traffic increased by 39 percent over baseline (a daily average of the first seven days of November) on Black Friday and by 11 percent for Cyber Monday
North American traffic in 2015 began a surge on Nov. 21 and remained higher than baseline until Dec. 30. In Europe, the surge in traffic began for both 2014 and 2015 around Nov. 21
Across all major shopping days in North America and Europe, traffic peaked in late morning and late evening. In North America, peaks occurred at approximately 11 a.m. and 9 p.m. In Europe, peaks hit at around 9 a.m. and 8 p.m.
Between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, Web application attacks in North America exceeded baseline (a daily average of 11 weeks of attack data) by 24 percent, while Europe saw 72 percent fewer Web application attacks

Akamai's retail customers represent the top 20 global eCommerce sites, and our findings include major retailers in North America and Europe. Akamai currently powers the eCommerce sites for 96 of the top 100 US online retailers, according to Internet Retailer Top 500 list. The full report can be found here.

Editor's Note: Akamai will be showcasing its Web experience optimization and cloud security expertise at eTail West Conference, taking place February 22-24, 2016 in Palm Springs, CA.

About Akamai:

As the global leader in Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, Akamai makes the Internet fast, reliable and secure for its customers. The company's advanced web performance, mobile performance, cloud security and media delivery solutions are revolutionizing how businesses optimize consumer, enterprise and entertainment experiences for any device, anywhere. To learn how Akamai solutions and its team of Internet experts are helping businesses move faster forward, please visit www.akamai.com or blogs.akamai.com, and follow @Akamai on Twitter.