Recent figures have shown that around one in five online retail searches in the month of December were made using mobile devices.

The British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Google have released their Online Retail Monitor Q4 2011, which shows that retail search volumes grew by 24 per cent in the final quarter of the year. Furthermore, the number of retail searches made using mobiles or tablet devices snowballed, with a 164 per cent year-on-year growth.

On Christmas Day, even more retail searches were made on mobile devices, accounting for around 26 per cent of the total online searches for the day.

Food and drink items had the fastest growth rate when it came to online searches, with a 29 per cent year-on-year rise. The biggest year-on-year increases on mobile devices was for homeware items, gaining a 189 per cent growth.

Stephen Robertson, director general of the BRC, said: “The significant growth in searches from countries such as Brazil and Russia shows the opportunities presented by emerging economies. For many retailers, tapping into these booming consumer markets is an increasingly important strategy for growth.”

Peter Fitzgerald, Google retail director, said: “The usage patterns on the different devices are particularly interesting. Over Christmas desktop search volumes peaked on Monday 5th December and saw a marked drop thereafter. Mobile/tablet volumes remained consistent later into the month, peaking at the weekends, with many consumers likely to have been searching on their devices while out and about.”