Nielsen Data Report: October 2013

According to data recently released by online measurement company Nielsen, the UK’s online universe grew slightly during October, resulting in a total of 41.6 million users. This is the highest volume of individuals to go online in the UK since April of this year.

So far, 2013 has seen the online population reach 41.4 million people each month on average, with people who fall into Social Grade B continually making up the largest demographic group. The intermediate managerial professionals make up 30% of the digital population, while the Grade E group (unemployed) account for 11.2%.

The country’s capital boasted the highest amount of internet users, with 18.5% of the digital population hailing from London. Reflecting the actual geographical make-up of the country, the next densely populated internet region was the Midlands, which documented 5.3 million users (12.8%).

Most Time Spent on Top 200 Sites

Out of the top 200 websites in the UK, Facebook was by far the biggest time thief, with the average time per person clocking in at seven hours and seven minutes. This is even more impressive when you consider the social network’s extremely high reach (56%), with 23.3 million users accessing the site in October.

The next two entries fall into the online gaming category, with King.com – home of addictive and colourful games such as Candy Crush – netting the second biggest amount of time in the top 200 with four hours and 30 minutes.

EA – Electronic Arts Online was up next, with the games developer hosting interactive Hasbro-branded board games and unique properties helping each of its 1.8 million users spend just over four hours on the site.

It wasn’t just social networking, videos of kittens and free gaming that sucked users in; three of the top ten sites were email services. While Outlook.com was by far the most popular option (10.7 million users), users only spent 2 hours on average on the site in October.

Surprisingly, AOL Email boasted the highest retention with three hours and 25 minutes, followed by Yahoo Mail and Google Gmail which both hovered around the two hour and 40 minute mark.

Overall, browser-based online game Tribal Wars boasted the most time spent, capturing the full attention of its very niche audience. In October, each user spent a whopping 35 hours and 50 minutes on the site but despite Tribal Wars‘ impressive power to make users stick around, the site only ranked at 2929^th place overall and attracted a very small audience of 133,000 users.

Airlines

The most popular airline site suffered a small month on month loss (-3.5%) but easyJet held on to the top spot with ease, with 1.3 million UK users checking out the site. The month also saw flight comparison site SkyScanner see a massive 37% increase, helping it move up one place while knocking British Airways down a spot.

The flag-carrier airline landed in 330^th overall position and suffered a month on month loss of 22.2% with a total of just over 1 million viewers visiting the site.

Luton-based airline Monarch and low cost rival Flybe both moved up one space, despite the former losing 30,000 users over the month.

Fly.com, another comparison site, landed in the top ten in October thanks to an impressive MoM jump of 76%. While this only translates to an increase of 119,000 actual users, it was enough to secure its place amongst its more poplar rivals.