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51% of Mobile Purchases Are for Physical Things

Buying things on mobile has been getting easier over the years leading to an interesting twist.

Consumers now are using their phones to buy more physical than digital things.

The overall trend is a dramatic growth in paying for things with a mobile phone.

Total mobile online retail payment volume has more than tripled over the last two years and is projected to grow from $76 billion to $217 billion in four years, according to the Mobile Online Retail Payments Forecast 2015 by Javelin.

Mobile online retail commerce is projected to hit $94 billion this year.

Even with the mobile purchasing of digital goods such as music, games and apps, physical goods now are the most popular products bought by the majority (51%) of mobile purchasers.

Here are the most common purchases in mobile shopping, according to the Javelin study:

  • 51% -- Physical goods
  • 38% -- Games
  • 38% -- Music
  • 37% -- Apps
  • 18% -- Ringtones

Physical goods are the only product type to grow in the world of mobile purchasing, according to Javelin.

About a quarter (26%) of mobile phone owners make mobile online retail purchases. For context, almost half (49%) are browsing Web pages and nearly as many (46%) are playing games. So paying by mobile still lags other areas.

Consistent with other studies, Javelin found that younger consumers are more active purchasers. For example, 18% of mobile app and browser purchasers are 18 to 24 years old compared to 12% of all consumers. Also, those 25 to 34 years old account for more than a third (34%) of app purchasers compared to 21% of all consumers.

Those active consumers also tend to have the money, with 29% of app and browser purchasers earning $100,000 or more annually with well over half working full time.

Mobile purchasing is becoming more established as a way to buy. And there still is quite a distance to go for the masses to be doing it.

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