Online sales of computer hardware increased 25% yearly in the first 47 days of the 2010 holiday shopping season, thanks for the popularity of Apple's iPad.

comScore found out that $27.46 billion has been spent online in the present holiday season, led by computer hardwares as the top-growing category from 2009.

Reports said, "Purchases of handheld devices (such as Apple iPads and e-readers) and laptop computers drove much of the growth".

Computer hardware grew 25% in 2010, leading against consumer electronics that had 22%. Books and magazines had 21 % growth year over year, while computer software (excluding games) at 16%.

Apple on the other hand had sold 4.19 million iPads in previous fiscal quarter and  is forecasted to increase during the holiday quarter as Apple has extended retail availability of its touchscreen tablet.

comScore said  the promotional "Free Shipping Day" had increased the 2010 holiday sales of numerous online retailers.That special event alone that was held Dec. 17, online sales were $942 million.

"Free Shipping Day punctuated an exceptional week in which consumers spent more than $5.5 billion online, representing a 14-percent increase from last year,” said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni."While no individual days during the week surpassed $1 billion in spending, we saw strength throughout the week beginning with Green Monday and ending with Free Shipping Day on Friday. At this late juncture in the online holiday season, we have likely already witnessed the peak spending day of the year, which means that Cyber Monday should emerge as the season’s heaviest online spending day for the first time in history."

With the continuous increase in application demand, Apple's devices and rampant surge of updates on utilities and apps, online retailers now has in mind that having Apple's products in the package would make them improve more of their sales knowing that Apple itself foreruns other devices in the market.