UKOM Data Report: December 2010

For the second time in twelve months, the UK’s online universe passed the 40 million mark, according to data released by online measurement company UKOM.

December saw the online unique audience grow by 1.2 million, totalling 40.3 million users for the month. The freezing conditions continued throughout the last month of 2010, keeping most of us indoors. The ice and snow also threw travel plans into chaos as the Christmas period arrived, forcing many people to turn to the internet for regular updates.

However, the unique audience in the UK over UKOM’s inaugural year averages out at 39.3 million.

The London region continues to represent the majority of the UK’s online population, taking 18% of total users (7.5 million, a rise of 13% in the last twelve months).

The second highest concentration of users is in the Midlands, which has a unique audience of 5 million, down 10% since January 2010.

December saw slightly more women than men enter the online world, compared to the previous month. 618,000 more women were online leading up to Christmas, while the amount of men online grew by 302,000.

Brands

Despite the overall increase in users over the month, many of the top ten brands saw a fall in traffic during December.

As the Christmas post deadlines neared, the top two retail brands saw a drop in users month on month.

Amazon saw a sharp increase during November (an extra 3.4 million users) but was down to 19.9 million in December.

Although this trend is likely to continue in the coming months, December figures represent an active reach of 49% of the UK’s online universe.

Auction site eBay lost 1.3 million users between November and December (down 7.1%), which saw the site end the year with a total audience of 17 million.

It wasn’t all bad news, however, with some brands reporting record traffic.

Google was once again the country’s most popular online brand, reporting a record high of 35 million users – 89% of the UK’s digital population. BBC and Facebook also ended the year with cause for celebration, reaching new highs of 23 million and 26 million users respectively.

Retail

Although the top two retail sites lost traffic in December, following a burst of activity in November, most other retail sites in the top 100 enjoyed a positive upward trend.

John Lewis jumped up to 6 million users, up 1.9 million since November, giving it the biggest actual increase in its sector.

Argos continued its good run over the intensive shopping period, increasing visits by 1.4 million, a 15% month on month increase.

Electrical retailer Currys had the biggest percentage change over the month, increasing its audience by 50%, and moving up 50 places in the overall ranking.

Tesco remained the most popular online supermarket but only managed to increase traffic by 0.2%.

Sainsburys moved up 18 overall places to 92 in December and saw the biggest month on month increase from the Big Four with a rise in users of 27%.

Meanwhile, ASDA, the second most popular online supermarket, was down slightly – 0.2% (13,000 users).

And, the only retail site in November’s top 100 to see a decline in traffic bounced back as iTunes regained just over 1 million users in December.

Newspapers

The top ten newspaper sites witnessed a collective loss in users during December.

The Daily Mail online saw monthly users drop to 5.7 million, down 206,000 month on month.

The Times/The Sunday Times continued to shed users, with the biggest actual loss of the top ten. The Times site was down a further 339,000 users, with a total of 1.2 million for the month, falling a further 78 places to 327th most popular site overall.

News International’s highest ranking national newspaper site (and the only one remaining free-to-access), The Sun, lost 5% of its audience over the month.

Figures for its sister site News of the World continued to fall – down 65% since the paywall was erected in October, sending the site out of the top ten and dropping 629 overall places in the following months.

Despite the widespread loss of users across the newspaper sites, the top nine managed to remain in the same order.

Trinity Mirror Regionals’ popularity grew by 2,000 users in December, enough to send it into the top ten, resulting in a total unique audience of 518,000.

Travel

As Christmas drew closer, and with no let-up in the extraordinary weather conditions, many users turned to the internet to double check their flight status or book a last minute alternative.

As the snow brought many airports, most notably Heathrow, to a halt the BAA website was hit with record traffic. 1.7 million users visited the site, a sizable 107% increase on the previous month.

Rail and bus operator First Group also saw a huge increase, doubling its unique audience over the month to 697,000 users.

However, budget airlines easyJet and Ryanair lost traffic in December, as desperate customers lost hope on a last minute low-cost flight (down 15.2% and 17.9% respectively).

Weather

As the volatile weather continued throughout the UK in December, so did the nation’s need to stay up to date with the latest conditions and forecasts.

BBC Weather benefited from this the most, remaining the most popular online source for weather with an impressive 10.7 million users in December.This is a huge increase of 3.7 million people month on month (53.8%).

Not only did the BBC’s number of users increase, but the amount of time and page views also rose during the month. The average amount of pages per person went up from 17 to 23 over the month and each user spent an average 10 minutes on the site, up from 7 minutes.

The Met Office’s website enjoyed the second biggest increase of the month, gaining 1.9 million new users, totalling 4.6 million (a 68.4% increase).

Both uk.weather.com and Metcheck also managed to more than double their audience in December, reporting a 64% and 77% increase month on month.