(By Balachander) Online holiday spending to date in 2012 grew 17 percent amid aggressive retailer promotions, according to a report from COMSCORE Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR).
Amazon (AMZN) was the most visited online retail site on Black Friday, the report noted. The company also registered the highest visitor growth rate among the top five retailers on a year-over-year basis.
About 57 million Americans visited online retail sites on Black Friday, up 18 percent from the same period of last year.
Walmart (WMT), Best Buy (BBY), Target (TGT) and Apple (AAPL) were the other most visited retailer properties on Black Friday, the report noted.
COMSCORE, which provides digital analytics services, said $13.7 billion has been spent online for the first 23 days of the November – December 2012 holiday season.
Black Friday (November 23) online sales jumped 26 percent and surpassed $1 billion for the first time, the report showed. Thanksgiving Day (November 22), which has historically been a lighter online holiday shopping day, recorded a 32-percent growth in online spending to $633 million.
"With Thanksgiving now behind us and most consumers returning to work tomorrow, we can look forward with anticipation to Cyber Monday, which according to norms we've observed over the past three years should be the heaviest online shopping day of the season with sales approaching $1.5 billion or even higher," commented comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni.
For the holiday season-to-date, Digital Content & Subscriptions ranked as the top-growing online retail product category, jumping 29 percent, as demand for digital books, audio and video content were driven by the rapid adoption of smartphones, tablets and e-readers.