UKOM Data Report: February 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.

Google has once again proved to be the most popular destination for the UK’s online population. According to data released by UKOM, the brand had a unique audience of 33 million people over the month of August.

The UKOM figures, available on MediaTel’s new online database, show comprehensive traffic data for over 10,000 sites, including unique audience, active reach and gender profile.

The second set of data released by the UK Online Measurement Company shows that Google’s search page was the most popular search engine with 31 million users, reaching 81% of the UK’s online population.

The list of the top ten sites in the UK has changed very little since January, with only one new addition. Amazon.co.uk slipped from the top ten in February, with Google Maps landing at the tenth spot with a unique audience of 15.5 million. Although there is only one change in the ranking, all of the top ten websites saw a drop in users over February with the exception of Google Maps. The BBC saw the biggest month on month drop, losing over 2 million (-9.2%) of its audience across all its sites.

The second month of 2010 also saw a loss in audience for most of the top 10 search sites. BBC Search was down 31% since January, with a unique audience of 2.6 million. MSN’s ‘decision’ engine, Bing, saw the only increase in the ten most popular search engines. In February, Bing Web increased its audience by 20,000 users, moving it up one place. While the most popular search engines in this list remain the same, the ranking order has changed slightly with Ask.com slipping down two places, losing 1.5 million users. This month’s data also shows Google with three entries in this list, with search and image proving most popular. Google Search clearly dominates the market with 24 million more users than third placed Yahoo! Search.

In the US, February saw a 10% rise in video usage, but in the UK the majority of the top ten video sites saw a period on period drop in usage. The line up and rank order remained mostly the same but YouTube, iPlayer, and Google Video all saw losses over February, with the iPlayer down 13% period on period. MSN’s VoD saw no movement in traffic but remained strong enough to beat Channel 4 and ITV’s offerings. The American company recently launched a new version of the service in the UK, featuring over 1,000 hours of content and is expected to increase in popularity over the coming months. Sky Player saw the biggest increase of the top ten, with 39,000 users, pushing the service into tenth place and jumping 118 places overall.

With a recent report that Facebook has overtaken Google as the most visited site in the US, it is no surprise to find it at the top of the social network sites with 23 million users in the UK over February giving it a 60% reach of the online population. However, it sees a loss of 2.2% in users PoP. In fact, all but one of the top ten social sites lost audience over the period, with Twitter the most affected. The professional networking site Linkedin was the only site in the top ten to see an increase in traffic, up 172,000 users over February, a PoP change of 7.7%.

A similar trend is seen in the top ten news sites with all but one reporting smaller audience figures than in the first month’s data release. The news channel of the BBC’s site remained the most popular source for users in the UK, with an audience of 11 million, a drop of 12.7% from January. Mail Online became the most popular national newspaper website, pushing Telegraph.co.uk down two places, but it still lost 5.8% of its users since January. Sun Online was the only site to gain users, seeing an increase of 7.1% PoP.