Nielsen Data Report: March 2014
March brought a slight increase to the UK’s online digital population, marking the first time the amount of internet users has grown in 2014, after seeing a small month on month rise of 1.5%.
According to data released by online measurement company Nielsen, a total of 39.6 million people in the UK took to the internet in March, with 38.2 million of those logging on from static home and work locations at some point over the month.
When broken down by demographic profiles, the largest groups online consisted of the middle and lower middle classes, representing 30% and 17% respectively. The largest age group were aged 50 and over, representing 34% of all those online, followed by the 35 to 49 year olds with 27%.
As expected, London accounted for 19% of internet activity over the month, with 7.4 million users logging on from the capital. The Midlands and Wales and the West followed with 13% and 10.3%, respectively.
Further breakdowns can be found using the Universe Profile report here.
Top Categories in Top 100
Although entertainment sites feature predominately in the UK’s most popular digital destinations, March saw two different categories compete for the top spot.
When looking specifically at the top 100 most popular sites, News & Information (top site BBC) and Search Engines, Portals & Communities (Google, Facebook,etc) came out on top with both categories accounting for 21% each.
The Entertainment category came in third place, only making up 16% of the top 100. However, when looking at a much larger number of sites, entertainment sites were by far the most popular type of destination for users in March. Out of the top 10,000 sites, a whopping 25% fell into the Entertainment category. This is made all the more impressive when looking at the second biggest category in the top 10,000 sites, with Home & Fashion only representing 10%.
Time Spent in Top 200
Facebook was, by far, the site users spent the most time on in the top 200. On average, each visitor over March spent eight hours and 21 minutes trawling through their news feed or checking out friends’ pictures.
Not only that, Facebook boasted a 53% reach across the UK’s online population, securing third place overall with 20.8 million visitors.
Next up was King.com, home of the developer behind painfully addictive games like Candy Crush Saga and Farm Heroes Saga. Even though the site brought in significantly less users than Facebook, the content on King.com ensured that, on average, each of the 2.9 million visitors spent five hours and 21 minutes on the website.
Although Google was the UK’s most visited online destination in March, the search engine’s homepage was beaten by the company’s email offering for time spent. While Google managed to persuade each of its 29.3 million users to spend 2 hours and twenty five minutes on the site, each of Google Gmail‘s 7.3 million March visitors spent two hours and 35 minutes on the site.
Outside of the top 100 sites, Guildwars.com saw its users spend the most time on any website. The browser-based game, which only ranked 9,119th place overall, saw each of its 32,000 users spend a mind-melting 52 hours and 46 minutes on the site.
| UK Rank | Site | Category | Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Member Communities | 08:21:09 | |
| 92 | King.com | Online Games | 05:21:55 |
| 106 | Videolan | Software Manufacturers | 04:01:41 |
| 7 | YouTube | Videos/Movies | 03:30:29 |
| 165 | AOL Email | 03:06:15 | |
| 28 | Google Gmail | 02:35:14 | |
| 174 | Netflix | Videos/Movies | 02:33:52 |
| 1 | General Interest Portals & Communities | 02:25:45 | |
| 89 | Tumblr | Member Communities | 02:14:18 |
| 16 | Skype | Instant Messaging | 02:09:18 |
Top Travel Sites
Reflecting the overall trend in total UK users, most of the top ten travel sites enjoyed a rise in usage. Google Maps continued to be the most popular travel-related site and enjoyed a month on month increase of 5%.
A total unique audience of 9.5 million people meant that the Google site was significantly ahead of its nearest competitor, boasting a lead of 4.8 million users.
In second place was TripAdvisor, the home of unbiased holiday reviews, with 4.7 million users. This represents an impressive 12% share of March’s online population.
Both TheTrainLine and National Rail featured high in the top ten, netting two million and 1.8 million users, respectably. While there wasn’t a huge difference between the actual month on month increases reported by both sites, the jump in TheTrainLine‘s users translated to a 16% rise, while National Rail‘s popularity rose by only 6%.
The top ten highlights a huge disparity within the most popular sites – Expedia was in tenth place in March, claiming 1.4 million users, representing just 15% of Google Maps‘ users. Transport for London was the ninth most popular travel site and experienced the only month on month loss in the top ten. March brought an -11% drop to 1.4 million users for the capital’s transport site but held onto 1.4 million users.
| UK Rank | Site | Mar 14 (000s) | Feb 14 (000s) | Change (000s) | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | Google Maps | 9,453 | 8,970 | 483 | 5.4 |
| 51 | TripAdvisor | 4,683 | 4,385 | 298 | 6.8 |
| 72 | Priceline Network | 3,443 | 3,101 | 342 | 11.0 |
| 77 | Booking.com | 3,327 | 2,983 | 344 | 11.5 |
| 140 | TheTrainLine | 2,080 | 1,787 | 293 | 16.4 |
| 161 | National Rail | 1,846 | 1,741 | 105 | 6.0 |
| 168 | Google Earth | 1,783 | 1,705 | 78 | 4.6 |
| 210 | easyJet | 1,438 | 1,280 | 158 | 12.3 |
| 212 | Transport for London | 1,419 | 1,601 | -182 | -11.4 |
| 215 | Expedia | 1,395 | 1,244 | 151 | 12.1 |
Further breakdowns and reports can found in MediaTel’s Online database.