Black Friday, the day following Thanksgiving in the US and traditionally the beginning of Christmas shopping for US consumers, will see over half of all online shopping carried out via mobile this year.

Black Friday is often the largest single day of earnings for many US retail businesses, with widespread savings and promotions offered to encourage festive customers. In recent years, the Monday following Thanksgiving weekend has been dubbed Cyber Monday as part of efforts to persuade people to shop online.

According to research by IBM, this years five-day period from Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday will see a 15 per cent increase in online sales. For the first time, over half of all online shopping (approximately 53 per cent) will come from mobile devices, up 23 per cent year-on-year, with mobile sales also expected to increase nine per cent on 2013 figures, up to 28 per cent of all online sales.

Apple are expected to dominate the mCommerce market over the period, with device traffic projected to be double that of Android devices, and sales expected to quadruple.

Digital coupons are predicted to have their biggest Black Friday yet, as consumers become more comfortable with them. IBMs figures predicted that while the average number of items in shoppers checkout baskets will be up 17 per cent, to 4.4, average spend per customer will actually drop slightly to $123.28 (£77.69).

“Without question, this will be a strong holiday shopping season, supported by the power of big data and analytics, which are helping brands better understand their consumers and make crucial decisions in real-time,” said Jay Henderson, director of strategy for IBM ExperienceOne.