Nielsen Data Report: February 2014

The UK’s online population has seen a steady, if minute, decline over the last few months, according to data released by online measurement company Nielsen.

In February 2014 a little less than 39 million people accessed the internet in the UK, translating to a month on month drop of 1.1 million users.

It was reported that 41.6 million users were online in October 2013 and despite a slight increase in December (lower than expected in the run-up to Christmas), the overall digital population has continued to slowly decline.

This overall decline is reflected in the two areas specifically looked at below.

The second month of 2014 saw almost 39 million users go online at some point, although this number falls to 37.6 million when excluding mobile devices used out of the home and workplace.

As usual, the largest age group online were the oldest. Users aged 50 and older made up 33% of February’s digital population, which translates to 12.7 million people. This was followed by 34-49 year olds who accounted for 10.8 million online users (28%).

Further breakdowns can be found using the Universe Profile report here.

Mass Merchandiser Sites

As expected, digital retailing giant Amazon was hit the hardest out of the most popular merchandiser sites but the website’s overall popularity ensured that the 1.2 million fall in visitors only represented a -7% drop and kept it in first place.

Which isn’t very difficult when you consider Amazon‘s nearest online rival is a full 11 million users below the American company. While national supermarket retailer Tesco lost a significantly less 834,000 users month on month, this translated to an -11% fall.

While the entire top ten saw a post-New Year drop in popularity – with Amazon taking the brunt of the loss – it was actually upmarket purveyor of fashion and homeware goods John Lewis which suffered the biggest percentage drop. A loss of 888,000 users in February equated to a whopping -27% decline, which resulted in falling one place in the top ten and 22 overall places.

British catalogue merchant Argos was also hit hard, losing 994,000 since January, while Marks & Spencer was down by 789,000 users.

Most Time Spent in Top 200 Sites

Facebook‘s time-thieving abilities should come as no surprise to anybody but February’s online data shows that despite a significant loss in time spent per person, on average each of its 20.6 million visitors in the UK spent just over seven hours on the site.

The second most time-zapping site was home of Candy Crush Saga, amongst other extremely popular casual games. King.com attracted 2.7 million users into its web of sparkly visuals, with each person clocking up an average of four hours and 26 minutes.

Netflix subscribers spent two hours and 48 minutes on the streaming website, while the pre-Amazon Instant rebrand LOVEFiLM didn’t even make the top 200 with just under 45 minutes spent per person.

Looking outside of the top 200 sites, Guildwars.com by far had the most power to suck UK users in. The browser-based massive multiplayer game was only the 9,172th most popular site in February with 30,000 users, but each person spent a huge average of 37 hours slaying Necromancers and Elves.

Video Streaming Sites

The fortunes of the most popular video streaming sites were looking just as unfortunate – all apart from one site in the top ten which reported a slight increase in users. Yahoo Screen, home of free video content and trending virals, may have only attracted 1.4 million users to the site but this represented a 46,000 increase.

Unlike the mass merchandisers, online video’s leading stalwart YouTube did see a month on month loss but the drop in users wasn’t very significant. Losing nearly half a million viewers only meant a -2% drop for the Google-owned video giant, helping it remain the fifth most popular online destination overall.

A total audience of 18.7 million users meant that the internet’s number one video site boasted a 48% reach of the entire online population, while average time spent increased by three minutes to a total of three hours and 40 minutes per person.

There were three national broadcasters’ catch-up services in the top ten, with BBC iPlayer remaining in second place despite a -4% loss, managing to move up seven places overall to rank at 44^th most popular site.

Channel 4oD boasted 1.8 million unique users, moved up 27 overall places and kept each visitor on the site for an average of 47 minutes.

The website for ITV Player barely scraped into the top ten after a massive month on month decline of -24% – falling from 254^th site down to 299^th place overall.

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