Christmas Day Tops in Digital Content Acquisitions, Subscriptions

28 Dec, 2011 By: Erik Gruenwedel

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Sales of digital content such as music, books, movies and apps accounted for about 2.8% of all retail sales during the winter holidays (through Dec. 26), but topped 20% of all digital sales on Christmas day, according to a new report.

With many consumers getting new smartphones, tablets, e-readers and digital content gift certificates for Christmas, comScore said these consumers spent Christmas Day loading up their devices with new content — a trend that is expected to continue through New Year’s Day. The week ending on Christmas (Dec. 25) saw $2.8 billion in spending, up 16% from the same period last year.

"If the transactions are paid for through the respective e-commerce websites during the reporting period they would be included," said comScore's Andrew Lipsman. "But recurring transactions (i.e. a Netflix subscription) would not be included since typically only the initial sign-up would be observed via the Netflix website."

The Reston, Va.-based online data measurement company said that overall ecommerce spending during the winter holiday exceeded $35 billion, up 15% from $30 billion spent online during the same period last year. 

“We can now say with certainty that the $1.25 billion spent on Cyber Monday will rank it as the heaviest online spending day of the season for the second consecutive year, but we should also note that it was accompanied by nine other billion dollar spending days this year,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni in a statement.
 

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