Various reports about online sales on Black Friday (29 November) have highlighted the contribution of mobile devices which, in some cases, including UK retailer John Lewis, showed spectacular growth.

IBM, which analyses sales data over the period, said online sales in the US on Black Friday grew 19 per cent over 2012, with a surge of mobile sales which has now reached 22 per cent of the total.

In the UK, John Lewis reported a stellar fourteenfold increase in mobile traffic on Black Friday, and orders from mobile devices that were more than three times the previous record for a single day. However

In the US, Thanksgiving Day (28 November) also impressed, with IBM pointing to a 20 per cent growth in online sales, of which 26 per cent came via mobile devices.

Further evidence came from Branding Brands, which runs m-commerce services for a number of leading US brands, which said it saw a 69 per cent increase in visits to 46 smartphone-optimised sites for major retailers on Thanksgiving Day compared to 2012. And sales from these sites surged massively by 258 per cent.

Figures supplied by the US National Retail Federation were less rosy. It said total purchases (both stores and online) fell 2.9 per cent to $57.4 billion over the four days of the Black Friday weekend, although online sales were up.