Edible Apple

Apple this past Friday reportedly enjoyed its best single day sales period ever. All before 7 PM no less. With its strongest product lineup in history, not to mention more Apple retail stores than ever, one might say that the stars this holiday shopping season are aligning in Apple’s favor.

Highlighting Apple’s growing popularity, recently released data from comScore about the most visited online retail destinations this Black Friday reveals that Apple came in 5th behind stalwarts like Amazon, Walmart and Best Buy.

Think about that – retail giants like Amazon and Best Buy sell an assortment of products from an endless list of manufacturers whereas Apple only sells Apple products. And still, with respect to online visits, Apple was able to hang with the big boys as the lone individual retailer, narrowly losing out to Target for fourth place.

Fifty million Americans visited online retail sites on Black Friday, representing an increase of 35 percent versus year ago. Each of the top five retail sites achieved double-digit gains in visitors vs. last year, led by Amazon. Walmart ranked second, followed by Best Buy, Target and Apple.

“Each of the top online retailers generated significantly greater Black Friday activity compared to last year,” added [comScore chairman Gian] Fulgoni. “Amazon.com once again led the pack, with 50 percent more visitors than any other retailer, while also showing the highest growth rate versus last year. However, it is telling that the top multi-channel retailers also showed strong growth in visitors, demonstrating the importance of the online channel to the retail industry as a whole.”

comScore analyst Andrew Lipsman added that this is the first time he can remember seeing Apple in the top 5, a testament to Apple’s growing popularity across its entire product line.

via All Things D