UKOM Data Report: October 2010

NIELSEN GLOBAL DATA PROCESSING PROBLEM: Data for the below report did not meet quality standards set by UKOM, and should be sourced as “Nielsen NetView” not “UKOM APS”. The affected MediaTel UKOM Data Reports, found in Newsline, dates from February to October 2010.

Nielsen and UKOM have rectified this fault and data has been re-issued and updated in the Online database which can be found by running reports here. Please contact your Nielsen client representative if you require further information.

The UK’s online population was edging ever-nearer to 40 million user mark during October, according to data released by Nielsen.  The UK had a total unique audience of 39.6 million people over the month, an increase of 112,000 users PoP and a rise of 752,000 since UKOM launched in January. In September, men outnumbered women by over one million, a figure which narrowed to 751,000 in October, resulting in female users making up 49% of the online universe.

London continues to be the region with the highest number of users – 7.7 million in October, which is 19.5% of the total UK audience.  Over the first 10 months of the year, online users in the capital have grown by over one million. Lancashire, on the other hand, has shed 1.4 million (30%) of its online audience since January, with 3.1 million using the internet in October. The Borders was the region with the lowest percentage of users (0.83%) and was also down 40,000 from January to October.

Brands

The BBC and Wikipedia both saw a slight drop in users during October – the only two brands in the top 10 to do so. The BBC’s online audience was down 653,000 users over the month, down 3.1% PoP, but the brand managed to remain in fifth place. Wikipedia, meanwhile, was down 377,000 users on September’s figures.

With consumer instincts kicking in during the run up to Christmas, eBay saw the biggest rise of the top ten brands. The auction site increased users by 628,000 and featured the highest month on month increase – up 3.7%. YouTube followed with a unique audience of 17.5 million, up 3.2% since September. Overall, the ten most popular online brands remained in the same order as the previous month with little movement in traffic.

TV Catch Up

The number of people logging on to online catch-up services does not necessarily reflect the amount of time people spend on each site. Looking at the top ten VoD sites, by time spent per person, it is clear that the most watched services are not usually the highest ranked by unique users.  However, YouTube bucks this trend – it is the most visited video site and attracts users for more time than any other online video website. In October, visitors to YouTube spent on average one hour and six minutes on the site. The Google-owned video sharing site, which offers a mixture of user generated and on-demand content, increased the time spent per person by 10%.

On the other hand, SeeSaw, which is currently the tenth most popular on-demand site (by audience numbers) had a impressive month in terms of keeping users engaged for longer periods. The service, which features free and paid-for content from the major broadcasters, saw usage time increase by 66%. In August, SeeSaw signed a deal with NBC Universal to carry shows such as House, Battlestar Galactica and 30 Rock, helping the service stand out from most of the other UK VoD services. All but one of the top 10 services saw an increase in time spent per person over the month. MSN Video was the only player to suffer a decline in usage, down 20.4% in October.

Clothes Shopping

eBay Clothing Shoes & Accessories remained the most popular online destination for clothes shopping in October, attracting 2.6 million users, 64.2% of who were women. This represents an 11.5% jump in traffic over the month. However, the biggest actual gain was seen by Matalan, which attracted 350,000 more users in October, bringing the total unique audience to 1.2 million and moving the site up one place within the top ten. Brandalley.co.uk and TopShop were both down in October – 11.8% and 14.2% PoP respectively – but this did not stop Brandalley.co.uk stealing the tenth spot away from Clarks. River Island moved up one place by attracting an extra 225,000 users during the month.

Mass Merchandiser

Despite the on-going economic crisis in the UK, all of the top ten mass merchandisers enjoyed a boost in web traffic during October. Although this might not necessarily translate into sales, the build up to Christmas has helped the UK’s top shopping sites do remarkably well in the current market. Tesco Direct saw its unique audience increase by 14% – the biggest percentage change over the month.  Argos saw the largest increase in actual users, with an extra 747,000 over the month, bringing October’s unique audience to 7.5 million. This was followed by online retailer Play.com, which gained 490,000 users – an increase of 12.9% PoP.

October saw Marks & Spencer drop one place to the fifth spot, despite growing its user base by 448,000 users. Amazon remained well ahead of its competitors with a unique audience of nearly 17 million people and a slight increase in users – up 2.3%. ASDA Direct managed to crawl into the top 10, knocking The Co-Operative to thirtieth place. With November 22 expected to represent the height of pre-Christmas shopping, it will be interesting to see how this affects the traffic of the UK’s biggest online retail brands next month.