comScore: Cyber Monday sees $2B in e-commerce sales, sets record as biggest U.S. online spending day

All day we’ve been seeing reports about Cyber Monday online sales growing compared to the past year, but now the first raw number is in, and it’s another record breaker. comScore has announced that Cyber Monday this year passed the $2 billion mark for the first time.

This figure is up 17 percent over Cyber Monday 2013. Furthermore, Cyber Monday 2014 has set two new milestones: Not only is it the only day ever to surpass the $2 billion sales figure, it now represents the heaviest online spending day in U.S. history.

On Sunday, comScore revealed the above sales numbers for Thanksgiving and Black Friday this year: $1.01 billion and $1.51 billion, respectively, and both new records in their own right. Today, the company added up the five-day shopping bonanza to find sales grew 24 percent over last year, to $6.46 billion.

“With more than $2 billion in online buying on Cyber Monday to cap an exceptionally strong 5-day period since Thanksgiving, the online holiday shopping season is clearly going very well at the moment and is currently running ahead of forecast,” comScore chairman emeritus Gian Fulgoni said in a statement. “Any notion that Cyber Monday is declining in importance is really unfounded, as it continues to post new historical highs and reflects the ongoing strength of online this holiday season.”

As we noted before, these new records were achieved despite reports of outages and slowdowns, suggesting they may have been even higher if all retail sites properly handled the load. Furthermore, it’s important to emphasize that the growth numbers vary depending on the data source: IBM saw a smaller jump for Cyber Monday, while Adobe’s estimate is in line with comScore’s.

Yet all these firms agree on one thing: Cyber Monday 2014 outperformed Cyber Monday 2013. Furthermore, online shopping via mobile is clearly growing, which should be absolutely no surprise as consumers increasingly own and use more smartphones and tablets.