Christmas Shopping On Tablets Set To Soar As Sales Reach £4.7bn This Year

Spending on tablets this Christmas is expected to rise three-fold taking the total spent on the devices this year to £4.7 billion.

The use of tablets is expected to mean sales overtake those on smartphones this year driven by cheap devices flooding into the market from the likes of Tesco, Argos and Dixons Retail, which owns Currys and PC World.

Tablets have rapidly reached a broader audience than home PCs and users are able to engage with them more often. It is also easier to see information on them than on smartphones.

'Shopping on a tablet device is a little more sensory,' Bill Fisher, analyst at eMarketer, a research group, told the Financial Times newspaper.

Tablets account for about one tenth of online sales, according to eMarketer. That is expected to quadruple to £17.9 billion over the next four years.

IBM researchers have calculated that 16.5 per cent of online sales in the US were made on tablets on Thanksgiving day compared with 9 per cent on smartphones.