UKOM Data Report: October 2011

Nearly forty million people accessed the Internet in the UK throughout the month of October. According to data released by online measurement company, UKOM, the unique audience for the month totalled at 39.9 million, growing only by 140,000 since September.

As usual, older people made up the majority of the digital population with users aged 35 and above accounting for 60% of the online total. The youngest group of users (aged 2-17) saw a boost in numbers, growing by 7.2% since October 2010 while users aged 25-34 have fallen in numbers since the same period; down 8.5%. The top social grades, the ABC1s, accounted for 60% of those online. More breakdowns can be accessed by running the Universe Profile report here.

The UK’s online audience averaged out at 39.5 million over UKOM’s first 22 months, while total users in October 2011 increased by only 0.4% month on month and 0.9% year on year. Since UKOM began measuring the UK’s online activity in January 2010 the online audience has passed the 40 million mark four times. Historic traffic can be viewed by running this report.

Brands

September proved to be a bad month for the top ten brands with all, bar Microsoft, seeing a drop in users month on month (MoM). October brought a reversal of fortune with nine out of the ten most recognisable online brands increasing in audience. Google continued to be the first port of call with 35 million users; a MoM jump of 1.1 million. This means Google had an impressive active reach of 87% for October.

As the Christmas season seemingly kicked off even earlier this year, retailing giant Amazon saw a massive increase in traffic, growing by over two millions users (12%) MoM. This brought the total unique audience to 19 million. Average browsing time also increased, up 1 minute MoM, totalling at just under twenty-seven minutes per person.

Yahoo! witnessed a small drop in users (down 46,000 MoM), the only brand in the top ten to do so but still maintained an active reach of 50%.

YouTube, home of user generated content and catch-up TV, saw a 6.3% increase in traffic bringing total users to just under 20 million. The average time spent by visitors to the site was a massive 1 hour and thirty-six minutes.

Social Media

Only one month on from the official launch of Google+ and things weren’t looking so well. Google+ had a soft launch in June, followed by a period of testing with invite-only membership. September saw the new social media platform, the biggest and most blatant attempt to rival Facebook yet, open its doors to the public and UK unique audience for the site jumped by 1.9 million. October saw Google+ fall two places in the top ten social media sites and losing over half a million users.

This 23% MoM change brings the amount of people using the digital giant’s latest venture dangerously close to that of Myspace.com, which also saw a loss in users. The original platform of social media was down 6.4% MoM.

WordPress saw the largest actual rise in the top ten, gaining 373,000 (9.8%) more users in October. BBC Communities and Tumblr saw small increases in popularity, 129,000 and 107,000 respectively, which was enough for them both to move up one place. Facebook remained at the top spot, gaining 362,000 more users in October, and 18 million users ahead of its nearest rival.

Online Newspapers

MailOnline continued to satisfy the nation’s thirst for news and celebrity gossip in October, remaining in the top spot and increasing its audience by 14.4% MoM. Somewhat surprisingly, given the Associated site’s blatant attempt to pull in the female demographic, the gender ratio of users is almost equally split, with women making up 53% of the audience. Guardian.co.uk witnessed a bigger increase than its main competitor but not enough to get out of second place. The Guardian’s website brought in 5.5 million users in October, a MoM increase of 19%. The Times saw the biggest actual drop of the top ten online nationals, losing 319,000 users (-24%). Mirror.co.uk saw the biggest percentage jump of the group, increasing traffic by 27% helping the Mirror Group site jump up thirty six places over all.