Consumer electronic stores are now reaping the benefit of new tablets and smartphones with online shopping between October and December 2011 growing by over 50% according to a new research study.Nielsen Online Ratings reveals that retailers like JB Hi Fi, The Good Guys, and Dick Smith grew their online business in the period. Westfield search traffic grew by 61%.

In 2011 the number of average daily unique browsers using their mobiles to access the internet surged 83.9 per cent with researchers tipping this to grow even further as sales of new devices soar.

According to Nielsen Online Ratings those accessing news content online has also grown from 300,000 to more than 500,000 this year.

“What we find is that when people own smartphones, be they iPhones or Android devices, they will use the internet on their mobile a lot more,” said Matt Bruce, Nielsen managing director for media audience measurement.

“The traditional retail brands are still staying strong online,” Mr Bruce said. “But across the board, we saw a big increase to retail websites from Coles and Woolies to JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman.”

Retail brands such as Harvey Norman have long been complaining about the impact that online shopping has had on their retail business. However, Mr Bruce pointed out that only one price comparison site, Oo.com.au, made the list of top online retail sites visited by Australians.

“That is a base-line trend which is driving more usage of the internet and, as part of that, people go more to mobile news sites.”

Mr Bruce said the traffic to news sites last year clearly showed large upticks at times of major breaking news. “What is particularly specific to mobile news sites is that when you get big events, you see more traffic going to those mobile sites than on the PC to traditional news sites. Where people need to get information they now often use their mobiles to find out what is going on.”

The Australian published the following chart: