What are Australians Doing Online?

News & Media, Banks, Education and Government leading Australian online industries; Australian Online Shopping lagging vs overseas markets

Melbourne - 22 February, 2008 - Hitwise Australia, the leading competitive intelligence service, today 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.

• Search Engines - was the dominant sub-category online, accounting for 10.8% share of all website traffic the week ending 9 February 2008. Google search properties were responsible for powering more than 87.75% of searches for the 4 weeks ending 9 February 2008. Australian Search Engine usage was on par with the UK market (10.91%) but ahead of US usage (8.65%).
• Social Networking & Forums - now represent 8% of visits to All Categories. MySpace and Facebook are the leading players, ranking 4^th and 7^th respectively amongst all websites. Visits to Social Networking & Forums websites was ahead of UK usage (7.69%) but behind US usage (9.18%). The high engagement of users with social networks was also demonstrated by a relatively long average session duration. MySpace attracted an average session duration of 27 minutes 4 seconds; and Facebook with 20 minutes 33 seconds for the week ending 9 February 2008. Both were significantly higher than the All Categories average of 11 minutes 55 seconds.
• Email Services – accounted for 4.96% share, behind Social Networking & Forums, but ahead of Portal Frontpages (4.66%). Australian visits to web-based Email were significantly less than in the US market (8.05%) but ahead of the UK (4.8%). Windows Live Mail accounted for the bulk of online market share, with 56.03% of Australian visits, followed by Yahoo!7 – Mail with 11.34% visits, week ending 9 February 2008.
• 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. eBay Australia was the leading website in the Shopping & Classifieds industry with 29.37% share for the week ending 9 February 2008.
• 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. The top three banking websites for the week ending 9 February 2008 were CBA NetBank with 12.48% share, Westpac Online Banking (7.77%) and ANZ (7.61%). 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. Ninemsn News was the top commercial news player with 6.47% share, followed by Sydney Morning Herald with 5.28% share for the week ending 9 February 2008.
• Education - Reference - was a leading sub-category partly due to the popularity of websites, Bureau of Meteorology and Wikipedia, which ranked 9^th and 12^th 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 4^th 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. These metrics provide an important benchmark for measuring community engagement with state and federal online initiatives. The Bureau of Meteorology was the top Government website, accounting for 35.05% market share, followed by Australian JobSearch with 2.1% share.

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,400 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise's patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise, a subsidiary of Experian (FTS: EXPN) www.experiangroup.com operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

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