UKOM comScore MMX – October 2015
The UK’s online population enjoyed some growth in October with desktop users seeing a minute 0.8% rise and a total just shy of 46 million users, according to data recently released by online analytical company comScore.
While it may sound insignificant, this represents the first increase since May of this year and translates to an extra 650,000 users accessing the internet over the month through PCs or laptops.
A little over 31% of all those that did access the internet throughout October belong to a household that generates an annual income of £50,000 or over, translating to 14.3 million users and showing that the highest income bracket accounts for the largest group of online users.
Those living in households earning between £10,000 and £24,999 accounted for the second biggest group, totalling 22% (9.9 million users). This was followed by £35,000 – £49,999 households which made up 21% of all those online in October (9.8 million users).
Top newsbrands
Mail Online remained the UK’s top digital newspaper brand, with October bringing a 2% increase in activity compared to the previous month. The DMGT property, whose winning formula mixes conservative-focused outrage with random American z-list celebrity news, secured 11.2 million desktop-based users and boasted an average dwell time of 49 minutes for each visitor.
The Guardian wasn’t in such good health, after losing 70,000 users month on month, dropping to 9.4 million users (a 21% active reach).
American-owned Gannet Sites, which consists of a multitude of UK regional channels such as croydonguardian.co.uk, wirralglobe.co.uk and stourbeidgenews.co.uk, as well as USAtoday.com, suffered the biggest actual loss in the top 10 newspaper brands.
-230,000 less users (a -5% fall) accessed the collection of sites throughout the month, resulting in a total of 4.9 million visitors and an average time spent of 17 minutes per person.
Trinity Mirror’s Local World Sites, home of cambridge-news.co.uk and cornishguardian.co.uk amongst many others, celebrated the biggest actual rise by adding an extra 220,000 users over the month.
| UK rank | Site | Oct 15 | Sep 15 | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 43 | Mail Online / Daily Mail [P] | 11,246,000 | 11,040,000 | 206,000 | 1.9 |
| 52 | The Guardian [P] | 9,394,000 | 9,464,000 | -70,000 | -0.7 |
| 64 | Telegraph Media Group [P] | 8,556,000 | 8,459,000 | 97,000 | 1.1 |
| 110 | Independent & Evening Standard (ESi Media) [P] | 5,800,000 | 5,606,000 | 194,000 | 3.5 |
| 142 | Gannett Sites [P] | 4,866,000 | 5,096,000 | -230,000 | -4.5 |
| 150 | Mirror Online [M] | 4,768,000 | 4,876,000 | -108,000 | -2.2 |
| 207 | Newsquest Media Group [M] | 3,645,000 | 3,648,000 | -3,000 | -0.1 |
| 247 | Johnston Press Plc [P] | 3,241,000 | 3,246,000 | -5,000 | -0.2 |
| 267 | Local World Sites [P] | 3,120,000 | 2,900,000 | 220,000 | 7.6 |
| 357 | EXPRESS.CO.UK [M] | 2,477,000 | 2,494,000 | -17,000 | -0.7 |
Top business/finance properties
It was good news for the most popular business and finance properties, with all of the top 10 seeing an increase in activity. PayPal, the American-owned international online payments system, was by far the most popular, increasing by a little under 600,000 users (a 6% rise), resulting in a total of 11.2 million.
Lloyds Banking Group plc was second, with a month on month increase of 578,000 users (a 7% rise), with a total of 9.3 million unique visitors, with each of those visiting the sites on average six times over the month.
The Royal Bank Of Scotland, owner of NatWest and Ulster Bank, brought in 6.7 million visitors over the month, resulting in a 15% reach across October’s online population.
Meanwhile in the competitive world of comparison sites, Moneysupermarket.com Financial Group secured 6.5 million unique visitors while BGL Group, owner of Comparethemarket.com, brought in 2.1 million users.
| UK rank | Site | Oct 15 | Sep 15 | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 44 | PayPal | 11,205,000 | 10,606,000 | 599,000 | 5.6 |
| 56 | Lloyds Banking Group plc | 9,325,000 | 8,747,000 | 578,000 | 6.6 |
| 89 | Barclays Bank | 6,773,000 | 6,721,000 | 52,000 | 0.8 |
| 91 | The Royal Bank Of Scotland | 6,735,000 | 6,655,000 | 80,000 | 1.2 |
| 94 | Moneysupermarket.com Financial Group | 6,525,000 | 6,116,000 | 409,000 | 6.7 |
| 196 | HSBC | 3,826,000 | 3,662,000 | 164,000 | 4.5 |
| 280 | Grupo Santander | 2,999,000 | 2,958,000 | 41,000 | 1.4 |
| 424 | Nationwide Building Society | 2,205,000 | 2,199,000 | 6,000 | 0.3 |
| 447 | BGL Group | 2,073,000 | 1,822,000 | 251,000 | 13.8 |
| 508 | Forbes Digital | 1,848,000 | 1,556,000 | 292,000 | 18.8 |
Further breakdowns and reports can found in Mediatel’s Online database.
comScore is the industry’s leading online media planning solution and is endorsed by UKOM as the UK standard for online audience measurement. To learn more about services and to gain access to the full set of data, please click here to contact comScore.