Mobile Shopping Popped Past Desktop During Holidays, Google Reports

Google reports a dramatic increase in mobile shopping, suggesting the channel is now mainstream for consumers.

"Mobile is now a behavior, not a device," said Omid Kordestani, Google's chief business officer, explaining the sharp increase in mobile activity the technology giant has observed over the past year.

Google shopping traffic on mobile has nearly doubled in the fourth quarter of 2014 from what it was a year earlier, Kordestani said in a Jan. 29 conference call to discuss the company's earnings, which despite the boost in shopping generally fell short of Wall Street's expectations. During much of the holiday shopping season, mobile shopping activity exceeded that of desktop shoppers, he said.

This does not necessarily mean desktop is being displaced, Kordestani added.

"People are using screens interchangeably, simultaneously throughout the day," he said. "We really think about the user and the context rather than the form factor."