Author: BWild

Forget Black Friday because in the United Kingdom shoppers buy the most on Christmas Day.

Some fascinating festive shopping insight is coming from the United Kingdom, as data has shown that UK mobile commerce spikes higher on Christmas Day than any other day of the year. Criteo recently released the results of a recent study. The festive trends analysis showed Christmas itself was the top shopping day for smartphone users.

This study took into account the volume of shopping on all days throughout the holiday season.

This holiday shopping study included Black Friday. What Criteo found was that on Christmas Day, 62 percent of online purchases are made over smartphones. This effectively makes that holiday itself the busiest UK mobile commerce day. There have been a number of theories to explain this trend.

Primarily, researchers believe that mobile shoppers look around online to find sales on gifts they wanted but didn’t receive. If Santa didn’t bring it, they’re determined to find it for themselves. Moreover, as the brick-and-mortar shops are closed that day, their only option is to go online. Criteo reported that 53 percent of Christmas Day shoppers are looking for items for themselves over their smartphones.

UK mobile commerce has already been showing a heavier trend than in the United States.

Previous studies have indicated that people in the United Kingdom are more likely to complete a purchase over mobile commerce than their American counterparts. This only increases the tendency to use the device that is already in their hands in order to make a purchase. On the other side of the ocean, many Americans still prefer to use their laptops.

In the UK, only 28 percent of online shoppers are making their purchases over a desktop. That figure is quite different in the United States.

The Criteo study showed that while the largest day for sales volume is Black Friday (246%), Christmas Day leads in a different area. Two out of every three transactions completed online are done over smartphones. While the actual total number of purchases may not be as high on Christmas as it is on Black Friday, the percentage of UK mobile commerce purchases is notably higher that day when compared to desktop.

Even though the DTEK50 experienced lower sales than predicted, the struggling handset maker isn’t stopping.

The floundering Canadian handset maker has decided it’s time for yet another BlackBerry keyboard phone. This announcement follows closely on the heels of an announcement from the company that misled much of the world into believing there would be no more BlackBerry smartphones. After that announcement brought the brand into the spotlight, it took care to point out that third party manufacturing would continue to make the branded devices.

Handset makers willing to pay to license the company’s brand will soon put out a keyboarded smartphone.

This new BlackBerry keyboard phone will be coming into the market even though the DTEK50’s results were not at all impressive. The DTEK60 was just released through a collaboration between the company and Alcatel, but figures about the success of that device have yet to be produced at the time of the writing of this article.

That said, when interviewed by Bloomberg, the company’s CEO, John Chen, gave the official confirmation that another BlackBerry smartphone was on the way. “We have one keyboard phone I promised people. It’s coming,” he said.

The official release date of the upcoming BlackBerry keyboard phone was not announced.

Chen said only that it was coming “soon.” Therefore, that could mean that BlackBerry will have a new mobile device on the market during the holiday shopping season.

Another announcement made by Chen during the interview pointed out that there are more companies interested in producing branded smartphones. In fact, he said BlackBerry is currently talking to two different companies about launching smartphones carrying their logo. That said, he did not identify the two companies at the time of their initial mention.

What he did say was that the two companies are based in India and China. He also suggested that the two companies were neck and neck in terms of what they have to offer.

Fans of BlackBerry keyboard phones appear to have some new offerings on the way in the next few months. Despite the fact that the company isn’t making its own mobile devices anymore, other companies seem to be interested in taking over.