Nielsen Data Report: April 2014
April brought a further decline to the UK’s online population after a slight rise in activity the previous month. According to data recently released by online auditing company Nielsen, January’s total of 40.1 million users was the busiest month online so far this year, with April seeing its audience drop to 39.3 million unique users.
However, April’s overall 318,000 drop in users only represents a -1% month on month fall. Out of the 39.3 million active users in April, 37.9 million accessed the internet from home or work locations, representing a month on month decrease of 308,000 users.
According to Nielsen’s data, there were 1.7 million more men online than women in the UK in April, with male users accounting for 52% of the digital population. As usual, the biggest group broken down by age were users aged 50 and over, accounting for a little over 13% of all users. Next were 35-49 years olds, with 27.4% representing 10.3 million people.
Surprisingly, the smallest age group were the 18-24 year olds, who made up just 12% of all those online during April, translating to 4.8 million users.
Further breakdowns can be found using the Universe Profile report here.
Top Categories
In March, News & Information-related sites made up the most popular category in the top 100 but when looking at the top 10,000 sites in April, Entertainment stands head and shoulders above the rest.
A massive 2,649 sites fell into the Entertainment category, which includes online giants YouTube and Sky Portal, translating to 26.5% of the top 10,000 sites. To highlight how impressive Entertainment sites are with the UK’s digital population, the next most prevalent category was Home & Fashion – featuring sites such as Rightmove and Homebase – which only accounted for 9% of sites.
Search Engines/Portals & Communities, which feature predominantly in the top ten, only made up 5.2% of all sites.
Top News
The BBC website remained the most popular source of news for the UK’s online population over April with a total of 17.2 million users visiting the site – a 44% share. Despite its continued success, the site actually saw a massive month on month fall of 1.5 million users, translating to an -8% fall overall. Time spent per person was also hit, down eight minutes to one hour and 50 minutes for each user.
The digital arm of the American news group CNN was the only site in the top ten to report an increase in activity, although it was minute at best. CNN Digital Network increased its audience by 50,000 users over April (up 2%), with a total of 2.6 million people using the site in the UK.
Yahoo News Websites experienced reversed fortunes, down a whopping 800,000 users which translates to a -24% drop. Time per person was down from 12 to nine minutes, while its overall rank fell 25 places, all the way down to 103rd place.
After the BBC and Yahoo News Websites, Telegraph.co.uk witnessed the third biggest actual fall in the top ten, down by over half a million users. Despite the drop, the site of the national newspaper actually went up one overall place in April, becoming the 44th most popular site for the month.
| UK Rank | Site | Apr 14 (000s) | Mar 14 (000s) | Change (000s) | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | BBC | 17,209 | 18,674 | -1,465 | -7.8 |
| 26 | MailOnline | 6,750 | 7,105 | -355 | -5.0 |
| 38 | The Guardian | 5,212 | 5,735 | -523 | -9.1 |
| 44 | Telegraph | 4,728 | 5,277 | -549 | -10.4 |
| 61 | Trinity Mirror Nationals | 3,731 | 3,774 | -43 | -1.1 |
| 71 | HuffingtonPost | 3,154 | 3,456 | -302 | -8.7 |
| 87 | The Independent | 2,696 | 2,916 | -220 | -7.5 |
| 97 | CNN Digital Network | 2,562 | 2,512 | 50 | 2.0 |
| 101 | Newsquest Media Group | 2,530 | 2,692 | -162 | -6.0 |
| 103 | Yahoo News Websites | 2,516 | 3,313 | -797 | -24.1 |
Top Commerce
Even the mighty Amazon didn’t survive April unscathed, with the colossal retail site mirroring the month’s overall downward trend. While a loss of 1.3 million users over the month only translated to a -7% fall, Amazon did have the biggest actual loss in the top ten. A total of 17.1 million users (an impressive 44% share) accessed the site in the UK, with time spent falling by six minutes to 41 minutes per person.
The biggest percentage fall belonged to Marks & Spencer, which recently announced falling profits, down -22.3% month on month. A total of 2.6 million users visited the site, with women making up over 60% of users to the site.
In what is possibly a sign of the times, the John Lewis website was pushed down one place to become the tenth most popular commerce site, making way for cheap deals website Groupon. After a loss of almost 600,000 users, 2.1 million viewers visited the UK’s premium department store, with 41.1% of total visitors falling into the B social grade.
Auction site eBay remained in second place, pulling in 15.2 million users over the month and retaining each user for an impressive one hour and 59 minutes on average. Despite the drop of 839,000 visitors to the site, eBay still managed an impressive 39% reach.
| UK Rank | Site | Apr 14 (000s) | Mar 14 (000s) | Change (000s) | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 | Amazon | 17,110 | 18,428 | -1,318 | -7.2 |
| 10 | eBay | 15,161 | 16,000 | -839 | -5.2 |
| 32 | Tesco | 6,146 | 6,619 | -473 | -7.1 |
| 35 | Argos | 5,313 | 6,227 | -914 | -14.7 |
| 58 | ASDA | 3,893 | 4,115 | -222 | -5.4 |
| 60 | Gumtree | 3,734 | 3,910 | -176 | -4.5 |
| 98 | Marks & Spencer | 2,554 | 3,287 | -733 | -22.3 |
| 122 | Sainsbury’s | 2,243 | 2,845 | -602 | -21.2 |
| 125 | Groupon | 2,201 | 2,376 | -175 | -7.4 |
| 128 | John Lewis | 2,146 | 2,731 | -585 | -21.4 |
Further breakdowns and reports can found in MediaTel’s Online database.