Is Churn rate muddling analysis of Groupon and LivingSocial?

An interesting take on the daily offers sites, Groupon and LivingSocial, comes in an article from eMarketer today, which considers whether high churn rates may be responsible for contrasting numbers via two recent studies by comScore and Nielsen in the last 3 months. The surveys are both based on US users only.

It reports that in April, Groupon’s churn rate was 18% while LivingSocial’s was 22%, according to comScore.

According to eMarketer:

“comScore found that internet users under 45 leaned toward Groupon, while those ages 45 and older skewed more in favor of LivingSocial. Those ages 12 to 25 underindexed on usage of daily deal sites in general, but underindexed less strongly on Groupon. Both sites were used by women more than men.

But Nielsen found the opposite age skew when it examined the sites’ demographics in March 2011. That analysis found that 33% of LivingSocial visitors were ages 21 to 34, compared to 25% for Groupon, while 51% of LivingSocial visitors were ages 35 to 64, vs. 57% for Groupon.”

As of Q1, 2011 Groupon had about 83 million subscribers compared to LivingSocial’s 26 million.

For the full report click here