ComScore: Holiday spending continued to rise

RESTON, Va. — Holiday spending continued on an upward trend as spending during the holiday season to date saw a vast increase, compared with the prior year, a new report from ComScore found.

For the first 56 days of the November-December holiday season, spending rose 15% to $35.3 billion. Similarly, spending rose 16% during the week ended Christmas Day (Dec. 25), to $2.8 billion, compared with the corresponding week last year.

"Holiday e-commerce spending has remained strong throughout the season, and we have now reached a record $35 billion in U.S. online sales for the season-to-date," ComScore chairman Gian Fulgoni said. "We can now say with certainty that the $1.25 billion spent on Cyber Monday will rank it as the heaviest online spending day of the season for the second consecutive year, but we should also note that it was accompanied by nine other billion dollar spending days this year."