Between midnight and Thursday and 12pm on Friday, Vipps registered 390,000 transactions on the system, a start that the company described as sløv, meaning “lethargic” or “sluggish”. 

“We expect an overall growth of 5-10 percent by midnight on Sunday,” Lars Green, who is responsible of MobilePay online, told the Ritzau newswire. 

Black Friday, the day of deep discounting and sales that began in America as a Friday between Thanksgiving and Christmas, is now firmly established in Denmark, with many shops offering significant discounts. 

But Green said that this year the spending had been spread more and more around “Black Week”, which stretches from Monday to Thursday. 

“What we are really experiencing this year is that Black Week is taking off as the year’s biggest shopping week,” he said. “The downside of this is that Black Friday flattens out more and revenues shift to the rest of the week.”

During Black Week this year, there were 2.1 million transactions on MobilePay, amounting to a total of 1.35 milllion kroner. 

A survey carried out by DI Handel — the retail branch of the Confederation of Danish Industry — found that 62 percent of the 1,000 people interviewed planned to go out looking for bargains on Black Friday, with 82 percent of those aged 18 to 29 years old likely to hit the shops. 

Shoppers in Denmark expect to spend an average of 2,348 kroner on Black Friday.