UKOM Data Report: October 2012

The onset of winter saw the UK’s online population jump up to its highest level since UKOM began reporting in January 2010.

A total of 43.9 million people went online over the month, marking the third time the UK’s internet users pushed past 43 million mark (and up 588,000 on September, the previous record holder).

42.3 million users used stationary devices in the home or at work to access the internet over the month, a year on year increase of 6%. Once again London proved to hold the largest group of internet users, with 8.4 million people logging on from the capital. This accounts for 19% of all those who went online during the month.

When broken down by gender and age the older groups take the biggest share, with men aged 50 and over making up 7.8 million users. That translates to 18% of all users online over October. Females aged 50 and over made up 14% of online universe, with 6 million users.

You can get a closer look of breakdowns by running the UKOM Universe Profile.

Portals

October brought no change when it came to the top performing brands across numerous categories. Google remained the top destination, securing an impressive 85% reach. 37 million of us visited the site, positioning it firmly as the dominant portal. Time spent online also increased – up to 1 hour and 58 minutes per person.

MSN Network’s Bing was the second most popular portal, which saw a small rise of 2.2%, resulting in an actual jump of over half a million users. There was very little movement for the top ten portals month on month, with Yahoo witnessing the biggest actual rise of 638,000 users (up 3%).

The biggest loss came from AOL Media Network, down a paltry 3.1%. While it doesn’t pull in the vast audience of its main dominant rival, users tended to stay longer on the AOL site. On average, each person viewed 81 pages and spent two hours and 15 minutes on the site over the month.

Virgin Media’s portal was well ahead of rival Sky, despite the massively popular uptake in Sky’s subscription services. Virgin Media had more than double the users than its rival website, with an unique audience of 5.6 million people.

Videos

Just as digital streaming has become commonplace for many people around the world, so too have the main brands in the Over-The-Top market. Naturally, Google’s YouTube leads the way, with 26 million UK users in October, an astounding 18 million people ahead of its nearest rival, the BBC’s iPlayer.

A total of 26 million unique users visited the video sharing site over the month, resulting in a 59% reach. The site, which hosts various catch up content from the main broadcasters, had a record month in October. This may have been helped by the fact YouTube live streamed Felix Baumgartner’s skydive from space.

The BBC’s hugely popular iPlayer came second with a unique audience of 7.3 million. This was actually down 1.2% month on month and down 1% year on year. ITV Player moved up two places month-on-month, with three million users catching up with the latest soaps and drama, no doubt helped along by Downton Abbey‘s third series and the noisy hyperbole that is The X Factor.

Sky Go slipped out of the top 10, to be replaced with rival blinkBox, which pulled in 1.2 million users. OTT providers of content have seen a fantastic year compared to broadcasters’ catch up services.

LOVEFiLM.com brought in 3 million users, resulting in a massive YoY rise of 74%. Machima’s YouTube channel (which features exclusive content such as Syfy’s Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome) jump up by 71% in the past twelve months.

It was Netflix however, which saw the biggest percentage increase in the past year. The website, which has been exclusively streaming AMC’s Breaking Bad, jumped from 99,000 users in October 2011 to 1.3 million.

Mass Merchandiser

All around the country shopping tills could be heard ringing to the sound of Christmas, even back in October. All of the top ten online merchandisers witnessed a rise in activity over the month, with Currys doing particularly well. Despite, or possibly because of, Comet’s highly publicised troubles the white goods and consumer electronics merchandiser managed the highest percentage increase in the top 10, up by 26% month-on-month.

It was left to dominant giant Amazon to secure the biggest actual rise of the top ten. The retail leader (which, refreshingly isn’t yet owned by Google) pulled in just under one million more users (+4%) over October, resulting in 22 million visitors.

The company responsible for the most manipulative Christmas ad of the season, John Lewis, got off to a good start with a 4% increase. Perhaps overly sentimental adverts are the correct form of attack – the gender breakdown shows a slight bias towards women, who make up 57% of their users.

No frills retailer ASDA had two entries in the top 10 – first up was umbrella grocery site in 4^th  place with 6.2 million visitors, a 12% monthly increase. In ninth position was ASDA Direct, the electrical goods arm of the business, with 3.3 million visitors and an even more impressive 19% jump month on month.

Further breakdowns and reports can found in the Online database.