LONDON: Shopping via mobile devices is predicted to account for more than 12% of total online sales in Europe this holiday season, according to a new report which identifies December 9 as the continent's largest online shopping day.

The Adobe Digital Index 2013 Online Shopping Forecast analysed billions of visits to thousands of retail sites to project that 12.4% of online sales in eleven European countries - Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Switzerland and the UK – during November and December would come from smartphones and tablets, representing a 68% increase on the previous year.

In particular, smartphone shopping is expected to almost double, growing by 97%, while shopping on tablets will rise 60%.

The report highlighted Monday December 9 as the "highest grossing online shopping day", when daily sales are anticipated to be 2.74 times the 2013 average daily online sales. And the following week would also be the highest grossing week of online shopping in Europe.

"The rapid growth in mobile shopping across Europe should be a very clear signal to retailers that a sound mobile strategy is not a luxury, but a vital part of their future success," said Mark Phibbs, vice president of EMEA marketing, Adobe.

He also noted that while tablets could generate between three and five times more online sales for retailers than smartphones, "in every European country we analysed, retail transactions on smartphones are growing faster than retail transactions on tablets".

"It's a reminder to retailers that a mobile strategy must include smartphones and not just tablets," he added.

The average figures hid some wide variations in individual countries. Thus, the UK is far ahead of the rest of Europe in mobile shopping, as it is expected to take 20.4% of all online shopping during the holiday period. And its main online shopping day is a week earlier, on December 2.

France, in contrast, is likely to see only 9.5% of online sales via mobile devices and the highest grossing online shopping day there is January 7.

Germany was closer to the overall European figures with 10.6% of online sales coming via mobile and the main online shopping day falling on December 8.

Data sourced from Adobe Digital Index; additional content by Warc staff