Nielsen Data Report: October 2014

According to data released by measurement company Nielsen, the UK’s online population remained almost static throughout October, witnessing a slight 0.2% increase which brought the total to 38.7 million unique users.

The month on month increase of 92,000 users meant that 60% of the estimated UK population was online in October. Previously, digital use peaked with 43.9 million users in October 2012.

Looking at the demographics of those online, the biggest socio-economic group represented is the B grade, made up of middle class managerial, administrative and professional workers at 29.7%. The C1s are the next biggest group, with 18% of those online through October fitting into the lower middle class category.

Society’s most affluent represent the smallest group, with only 6% of the online population hailing from upper middle class backgrounds.

When looking at household income, the vast majority fell into the £30,000 – £49,999 bracket, at 25%.

Further breakdowns can be found using the Universe Profile report.

Search

Unsurprisingly, Google Search was the most popular search site in October, with the Google brand remaining the number one destination for the UK’s online audience. The top ten search sites once again remained unchanged from the previous month.

A total of 22.7 million users accessed the service through a browser of some kind throughout the month, with an active reach of 59% and an average time per person of 44 minutes.

Main rival, Bing Web, from Microsoft, was in second place but lagging far behind. A total of 5.8 million users accessed the competitor’s service, resulting in an active reach of 15% with each person spending an average of 12 and a half minutes each.

AOL Search Websites witnessed the biggest month on month increase in the top ten, boosting its numbers by 566,000 people, resulting in a 20% jump.

On the flipside, Trovit – ‘the search engine for property, used cars, job ads, products and holiday rentals’ – fell by 54,000 people, which translated to a -9% drop in activity.

Classified

As seen in the below table, the original internet auction site, eBay, still has a significant lead over its classified rivals, even if the American company is more interested in joining the leagues of Amazon et al.

Boasting more than a staggering 11.4 million users than the nearest competitor, the 20 year old site brought in a total of 14.8 million unique users, resulting in a 38% reach and ranked as the ninth overall most popular website in October.

Not only that, the latest data from Nielsen shows that eBay increased its traffic by an impressive 11%, month on month, with each visitor clocking in two hours and four minutes on average.

Coming in second – and way behind – was London-born true classified site Gumtree. Publicised in the press as the home of fraudulent and devious activity, the now-international site managed to attract 3.5 million UK users and a 9% share.

The service, which includes posting for everything from flat shares to pets, is most popular with the over 50s who made up 34% of users in October.

The rest of the top ten sites make for some slim pickings with Preloved ,the third entry, only bringing in a digital audience of 995,000 and coming in at 293^rd overall.

There were two new entries in the top ten for October, with Barnebys (the auction site for arts, antiques and collectibles) managing to bring in 222,000 users while iChoosr (which hasn’t appeared in the top 10,000 since February) being visited by 129,000 users.

Personal

There was plenty of movement in the top ten personal sites, with the previous month’s most popular dating service, the genial PlentyofFish being pushed from the top spot by Ashley Madison Dating, which describes itself as a ‘dating destination for casual encounters, married dating, discreet encounters and extramarital affairs.’

The site, which has a micro-transaction business model, secured a browser-based audience of 749,000 users in October, representing an impressive 85% jump, month on month.

Surprisingly, people who visited Ashley Madison Dating only spent two minutes on the site over the month compared to PlentyofFish‘s 701,000 users, who spent a whopping two hours and 45 minutes each.

CheekyDevil had a pretty decent month, moving up from ninth to fourth place with a substantial monthly increase of 261%, totalling with 310,000 users.

Zoosk, OkCupid and Meet a Cougar fell down two places each while the newest hook-up sites on the block YouTango, Ayi and AnastasiaDate all jumped into the top ten.

AnastasiaDate, a dating site specialising in ladies of the Russian Federation, enjoyed a 90% jump in users over October, with each one of those visitors spending just three minutes browsing profiles.

Further breakdowns and reports can found in MediaTel’s Online database