There are now more than 11 million people using the Internet at home in the UK, according to NetValue. Home Internet users in the UK now number 11,599,000, an increase of more than 3,000,000 users from December 1999.
The number of women online has increased by 1,288,000, to 4,656,000 users, making up 40 percent of the home Internet audience. Users age 50 or older have grown by more than 680,000 users to 2,235,000, with kids online (14 and under) now accounting for just under 600,000 users.
Internet activity has increased for all users in the UK over the last year, NetValue found. On average, users went online for 4.2 more sessions a month in December compared with the same time in 1999. Older surfers connected to the Internet for an average of 12.5 days, 1.6 days longer than in December ’99.
December also saw traditional retailers enjoy huge success on the Web. Visitors to argos.co.uk reached 694,790, or 6 percent of the home Internet population. Of the most visited general retail sites in December, six out of 10 were high street retailers. Argos was the most visited general retailing Web site, followed closely by comet.co.uk with 5.4 percent reach and tesco.com with 4.8 percent reach. Next.co.uk had more than 150,000 users, or 1.3 percent of all UK home Internet users.
Strong sales for mobile phones pre-Christmas was underlined by the growth in the number of visitors to telecoms Web sites. More than one-third of UK home Internet users, or 3,980,000 visitors, went to a telecom site in December, up by almost 1 million from November. Bt.co.uk was the most visited site, with boltblue.com (a mobile services site) in second position. Nokia.com attracted 4 percent of users, 2.8 percent visited orange.co.uk, 2.7 percent visited vodafone.co.uk, and 1.7 percent visited carphonewarehouse.com. According to NetValue, 7,187,000 Internet users, or 62% of the online population, own a mobile phone.
MSN.co.uk was the most active advertiser in December, reaching one in four of all UK Internet users. Umbro.com continued its strong branding campaign, and was the second largest advertiser, reaching 2,484,110 users. Priceline.co.uk was the eighth largest advertiser in December 2000, signalling their strong online advertising launch in the UK. Etailers bol.com and amazon.co.uk were the fifth and sixth largest advertisers respectively, both reaching almost one in five users. NetValue’s Ad-Impact data found that 20 percent of Internet users saw at least one amazon.co.uk banner and 12.7 percent of all Internet users visited the site at least once. One-third of those who saw an amazon.co.uk banner went on to visit the site.
Money winning games are soaring in popularity on the Internet according to the Uk data from Jupiter MMXI.
The biggest winner in December 2000 was Grab.com — a lottery style game — with 421,000 unique visitors, up by over 100,000 on the previous month. In October 2000, Grab.com was ranked 25th most popular site in Jupiter MMXI’s Entertainment category, by December it had jumped to number three. Other popular money winning sites include Bananalotto.co.uk — a game where players pick seven numbers to win one million pounds and Iwin.com with 383,000, up by 150,000 on November’s figures.
Other popular sites in Jupiter MMXI’s entertainment category include the arts, music and film portal virgin.net; windowsmedia, a Microsoft site for downloading video clips, music and plug-ins; and MP3.com, a popular music site, where visitors can buy and trade music files.
Top 10 Domains in the UK December 2000 |
Top Domains in the UK |
|
Top Global Domains in the UK |
Rank |
Domain |
Unique Visitors (000) |
Reach |
Rank |
Domain |
Unique Visitors (000) |
Reach |
Nov. |
Dec. |
Nov. |
Dec. |
1. |
1. |
MSN.com |
5,336 |
42.4 |
1. |
1. |
MSN |
6,261 |
49.5 |
2. |
2. |
Yahoo.com |
4,608 |
36.4 |
2. |
2. |
Yahoo.com |
5,478 |
43.3 |
3. |
3. |
Microsoft.com |
4,182 |
33.1 |
3. |
3. |
Microsoft.com |
4,187 |
33.1 |
4. |
4. |
Freeserve.com |
3,874 |
30.6 |
4. |
4. |
Freeserve.com |
3,874 |
30.6 |
6. |
5. |
Passport.com |
3,454 |
27.3 |
5. |
5. |
Passport.com |
3,454 |
27.3 |
5. |
6. |
MSN.co.uk |
3,261 |
25.8 |
6. |
6. |
AOL |
3,225 |
25.5 |
7. |
7. |
Yahoo.co.uk |
2,626 |
20.8 |
7. |
7. |
Lycos |
3,001 |
23.7 |
12. |
8. |
MSN Messenger Service |
2,180 |
17.2 |
8. |
8. |
Ask Jeeves |
2,376 |
18.8 |
9. |
9. |
Lycos |
2,177 |
17.2 |
9. |
9. |
Amazon.com |
2,268 |
17.9 |
8. |
10. |
BBC.co.uk |
2,082 |
16.5 |
10. |
10. |
BBC |
2,082 |
16.5 |
Source: MMXI Europe |
Definitions:
Unique visitors: The number of different individuals that access the content of a specific site or online services, counted only once, even if they visit the same site more than once.
Reach %: The percentage of individuals that accessed the content from among the total number of individuals using the Web or online services during the month.