2010 set to be a mobile christmas?

Predictions are flying in thick and fast on mobile commerce and Christmas.

According to the predictions this year will either be the first year where mobile has made a significant impact on Christmas sales, or it’s likely be the year where mobile starts to make a difference. Either way it’s started a trend.

According to a new survey by Tesco Direct one in ten UK shoppers will do their online Christmas shopping from a phone rather than a computer. Which sounds better than the 30% quoted in the US IDC Retail-Insights  survey last week mobile to account for 30% of US Christmas Online Spend, but it still sounds high.

The company asked 4,000 consumers how they plan to use their mobiles in the run-up to Christmas, and found that half will shop online from their phones while watching TV, while one in six will do it on the bus.

“In October alone, we had over half a million people visit the Tesco Direct website using their mobile phones and in the run up to Christmas we’re expecting this number to surge as people order their gifts,” says CMO Ian Crook.

Traffic to the Tesco Direct website via mobile telephones has grown steadily, with a 300%t growth in mobile visitors over the last year and this led to the launch of the mobile Tesco Direct service earlier this month.

NEWS UPDATE – Further data from the Tesco survey shows that nearly half of the consumers surveyed will shop online using their phones while watching TV, one in six expect to buy something on their phone while sat on the bus, and a quarter will log on to shopping sites through their mobiles during their daily commute.

“Tesco Direct is expecting to ship more than 80,000 items today (Nov 29) as we face our busiest day of the year for online orders,” says tesco.com CMO, Ian Crook. For the first time this year, we anticipate a significant amount of these orders to be placed by customers using their mobile phones, because customers like the convenience of shopping on the go.”

“In October alone, we had over half a million people visit the Tesco Direct website using their mobile phones, and in the run up to Christmas we’re expecting this number to surge, as people order their gifts from Tesco Direct,” says Crook.