John Lewis has predicted that mobile traffic will overtake desktop at 5pm on Christmas Day this year.

It looks like a pretty safe bet. Smartphone and tablets made up just under 50 per cent of visits to the retailers site last Christmas, with mobile traffic peaking at 9pm. 

Meanwhile, Boxing Day – which last year saw a record 920,000 visits from mobile – is set to exceed 1m mobile visits.

“We know that our customers shop using many channels and over the last 12 months we have seen a significant increase in sales via mobile devices,” said John Lewis online director Mark Lewis. “Although customers are more likely to shop for lower value items on mobile devices, there are a significant proportion of customers purchasing big-ticket items. In fact the most expensive item weve sold on the mobile site was a £7,000 television”. 

In the first half of 2012, John Lewis saw 40 per cent of its traffic come from mobile, with mobile sales in the fashion category reaching 78 per cent.