UKOM Data Report: November 2010

The UK’s online population fell slightly in November, according to recent data released by UKOM. While some consumers turned to the net for their Christmas purchases, avoiding both the British winter and the crowds of shoppers on the ‘real’ high streets, there were just over half a million less people online than in the month of October.

Early last year, UKOM reported that 40 million users were online in April but the digital population has been sitting around the 39 million-mark since.

November also witnessed 82,000 less women online that the previous month (a monthly total of 19.3 million). However, there was a larger drop in the amount of men online, with a month on month difference of 427,000, presumably happy to leave any thoughts of shopping until Christmas Eve.

The largest group of users, by age, continues to be the 50+ age bracket, with a unique audience of 12 million –  a 0.7% rise since January 2010. The second largest group with 11 million users, the 35-49 year olds, have only seen a 5.2% increase since UKOM’s first release.

Brands

The top three web brands in the UK all saw a drop in users over November, with Google taking the biggest hit. The search engine saw a fall in its unique audience of just under one million – leaving it with a total of 33.4 million for the month, down 2.7%. Bing and Facebook were also down, losing 796,000 and 118,000 users respectively.

The BBC enjoyed a positive month, growing by 1.3 million users (6.5%), and moving up one place to swap places with Yahoo! (which saw a small 0.8% month on month increase).

While the top brands saw a drop in traffic in November, Amazon enjoyed significant growth over the month, increasing by 19.8% – resulting in a total unique audience of 20 million (up 3 million since October). The retailing giant also moved up three places to become the sixth most popular brand during the month.

Retail

Shoppers not only flocked to Amazon in the lead-up to Christmas, as all but one of the top retail sites in the top 100 posted an increase in traffic.  However, Apple’s iTunes service fell in popularity, losing 203,000 users over the month. Debenhams saw the biggest percentage change in the group with a whopping 42.2% more people visiting the site in November, resulting in over a million extra users.

The biggest actual change was witnessed by the most popular retail site, Amazon, with Argos following behind – gaining 1.8 million users month on month. Play.com saw a 38% change (1.6 million) while the highest ranking supermarket chain Tesco had 9.6 million users throughout the month, a 22% increase. Auction website eBay recorded the smallest positive change during the period but remained in second place with a unique audience of 18 million.

Weather

As the weather turned volatile, limiting non-virtual shopping for most of the country, the population became dependent on frequent weather reports resulting in seven of the top ten weather sites seeing a jump in traffic. The top five sites saw significant change, with BBC Weather leading the pack and growing by 2.5 million users in November, a 59% increase month on month. In second place was the Met Office, increasing by 107% over the freezing November. The top two weather sites benefited the most with the smaller sites witnessing relative growth given their size.

News

Mail Online continued to dominate the online national newspaper sector in November with a unique audience of 5.8 million – a 7% increase. The Sun had the second biggest jump in users, gaining 198,000, growing to just under 3 million in total. News of the World fell one place to 10, shedding 428,000 users (-39.1%), the biggest loss of the top ten.

The Times continued down the slippery slope, down 134,000 users, a trend that has been consistent since August. The Sun remains the only News International site on the free side of Rupert Murdoch’s paywall and is the only one of the sites to see an increase in traffic throughout November. The London Evening Standard saw the highest percentage change – up 8.1%, helping the Associated Newspapers site move up one place to number nine.