Hitwise Intelligence - Sandra Hanchard - Asia Pacific
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February 22, 2008
What are Australians Doing Online? Global Benchmarks
This week we've looked at Hitwise data that provides a snapshot of the leading industries that Australian Internet users visit. The update includes comparisons with major overseas markets, the United States and United Kingdom. Here are some of our findings:
* Banks & Financial Institutions - was a dominant commercial sub-category, accounting for 4.35% market share of visits. This reflects user confidence in conducting financial transactions online. Financial institutions were also competitive in marketing a diverse range of products and services through the online channel in 2007. Australian visits to banking websites outstripped US and UK usage, which recorded 3.59% and 2.35% market share respectively.
* News & Media - accounted for 6.75% share the week ending 9 February 2008, ranking after Social Networking & Forums. Australian online News & Media consumption was high compared to US and UK markets, with 3.97% and 4.63% market share respectively. Growth in referral traffic from Social Networking & Forums was up 48% comparing week ending 10 February 2007 and 9 February 2008. 'Social news' will continue to shape the direction of online media in 2008, with websites such as Technorati, Digg and Newsvine providing a model of how users can interact with news online.
* Education - Reference - was a leading sub-category partly due to the popularity of websites, Bureau of Meteorology and Wikipedia, which ranked 9th and 12th respectively amongst all websites the week ending 9 February 2008. The importance of Wikipedia as a general content source was reflected by the fact that Wikipedia was the 4th most popular website in the downstream traffic of Search Engines for the week ending 9 February 2008. Australian visits to Education - Reference accounted for 2.63% share, higher than US usage (1.62%) and UK usage (1.61%).
* Government – attracted strong usage amongst Australian Internet users compared to overseas markets, accounting for 2.56% share in Australia for the week ending 9 February 2008, compared to 1.52% in US and 0.87% in UK. This metric provides an important benchmark for measuring community engagement with state and federal online initiatives.
On the reverse side, Shopping & Classifieds – accounted for 5.93% market share of visits the week ending 9 February 2008, significantly less than the US and UK, which attracted 9.54% and 9.61% share respectively. Overseas standards indicate that there is potential for improved performance by vendors in the retail sector to increase online engagement. This is further highlighted by the fact that 30% of visits to Shopping & Classifieds websites were directed to overseas websites suggesting local inventory opportunities.
Posted by Sandra Hanchard at 10:20 AM
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