Mobile commerce sales doubled in the past year, reaching 13.3 percent of online sales during the first quarter, according to a new report from IBM.

Mobile traffic is also up significantly, with mobile devices accounting for 17.1 percent of all online sessions on a retailer?s site compared with 6.1 percent a year ago. During the holiday season, IBM reported that mobile accounted for 14.6 percent of Web traffic in December and 11 percent of sales.

?All of those trends we saw around mobile in the holiday season carried their momentum through in the first quarter,? said Jay Henderson, strategy director of digital marketing at IBM, Armonk, NY.

?We saw really strong traffic from mobile devices,? he said. ?In mobile sales, we saw over 13 percent of all sales on online retailers? sites happened on mobile devices.?

?It is not an anomaly during the holiday season ? mobile is here to stay.?

IPhone drives traffic
By device, Apple?s iPhone continues to hold the top spot for mobile device retail traffic at 6.5 percent while Android took second place with 5.9 percent.

However, the iPad came in close behind Android with 5.3 percent of mobile device retail traffic.

?The iPad was the number three device we saw traffic from,? Mr. Henderson said. ?There are some pretty big and interesting implications for marketers.

?The iPhone tends to emphasize location and a slim-downed experience while with tablets, there is less of a focus on location and more emphasis on a rich experience,? he said.

?With the continued proliferation of devices, the post-PC consumer is no longer chained to a desktop and is really moving around and in motion.?

According to the report, social traffic and sales are not growing as quickly as mobile. In the first quarter, shoppers referred from social networks generated 1.1 percent of online traffic, the same percentage seen last year.

Shoppers referred to retailer sites from social networks generated 2.4 percent of all online sales, compared with 1.7 percent last year.

Consumer sentiment
Overall, online sales were down 1.9 percent in the first quarter compared with the same period a year ago. However, in March online buying grew more than 6 percent.

Some of the fastest growing online retail categories include apparel stores, up 14.9 percent in sales, department stores, up 20.4 percent and health and beauty, up 28.8 percent.

The report also measured consumer sentiment around the digital buying experience and identified several key attributes for success: convenience, experience and overall value. The report found that consumers are more optimistic when it comes to these attributes compared with the same period last year.

?When you look at the concepts or attributes that increased the positive view of the buying experience, these are a great indication of what mobile marketers should be considering and where they should be focusing their efforts,? Mr. Henderson said.