• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, November 28, 2018

I get it. You’re at work on Cyber Monday and you see an item go on sale you’ve been wanting to buy, but didn’t want to pay full price. So you reach for your smartphone, search for the item, enter your credit card number and tap the button to make the purchase.

You weren’t alone in making those purchases during the past two days. This year, many more consumers compared with last year accessed websites through mobile browsers on Monday and Tuesday of this week, according to data from Akamai, a content delivery provider.

This year marked the first time since Akamai began tracking mobile and desktop internet traffic that handheld devices eclipsed desktop in use on Cyber Monday, based on session traffic measured.

Cyber Monday 2018, and the day after, saw hikes in online traffic to websites via mobile devices. Traffic rose 17% to 50.23% on Monday and 43.06% on Tuesday compared with 2017. Desktop traffic fell by 10% to 43.46% and 48.07%, respectively.

“We see no signs of mobile online sales dropping off through the remainder of the holiday season; it will continue its growth at the expense of desktop,” Akamai wrote in the report.

Cyber Monday did not see as dramatic a decline in desktop use compared with Black Friday, according to Akamai.

On Cyber Monday, Androd and iOS mobile operating system platforms performed well. On Monday Android drove 18.03% of traffic, compared with iOS at 38.48%. On Tuesday those numbers were 14.23% and 37.13%.

Conversion rates on Cyber Monday were very different compared with Black Friday, with iOS showing an increase in conversion rate compared with 2017 -- four times the increase compared to Android on Cyber Monday in 2018. iOS also increased substantially from 2017, which could be a result of more iOS devices in use by mobile shoppers.

On Black Friday, mobile web traffic rose 12% and desktop fell by 8% compared with Black Friday in 2017, according to Akamai.