It looks like will be a joyful holiday season for many online retailers this year. comScore is reporting that holiday retail e-commerce spending for the first 20 days of the November to December 2011 season is already up 14 percent from the same period last year. Wednesday, November 16 was the heaviest online spending day of the season to date at $688 million.
comScore is forecasting that total online retail spending for the holiday season will reach $37.6 billion, 15 percent increase from last year’s season. For background, the 2010 holiday shopping period saw a 12 percent increase from 2009. → Read More
All signs point to an increase in e-commerce spending this holiday shopping season compared to seasons past. comScore just released its online retail numbers for the third quarter of 2011, and online retail spending in the U.S. reached $36.3 billion for the quarter, up 13 percent versus year ago. This is the eighth consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth and fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth rates in e-commerce. In Q2 of this year, spending was up 14 percent from last year.
The top-performing online product categories were Digital Content & Subscriptions, Event Tickets, Jewelry & Watches, Consumer Electronics and Computer Software. Spending in each category grew at least 15 percent compared to a year ago. → Read More
ComScore just released its U.S. mobile subscriber numbers for the three-month average period ending September 2011. According to the report, 87.4 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in September, up 12 percent from the preceding three-month period.
Google’s Android OS was top smartphone platform with 44.8 percent market share, up 4.6 percentage points from the prior three-month period. Apple continued in the second position, growing 0.8 percentage points to account for 27.4 percent of the smartphone market. RIM ranked third with 18.9 percent share, down 4.6 percentage points from the preceding period, followed by Microsoft (5.6 percent) and Symbian (1.8 percent).
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comScore’s online video stats for September are in, and in today’s non-news, Google Sites again ranks as the number one source of online video views. Google Sites, which derives most of its traffic from YouTube, served 18.6 billion videos in September, which made up 47 percent of the 39.8 billion videos viewed on the Web last month.
What’s more, Microsoft Sites and Viacom Digital both leap-frogged Facebook in the rankings, to take third and fourth place respectively, as Facebook dropped to fifth. (You can read our August coverage here and Erick’s coverage of Facebook assuming third place back in July here.)
On the advertising side of online video, comScore reports that, of the 6.8 billion video ads viewed by Americans in September, more than 1 billion of those ad impressions were served by Hulu. → Read More
ComScore’s August web video rankings are in, and this is for sure: Americans watch an enormous amount of online video content, with most of that taking place on — you guessed it — YouTube. Of course, last month, Facebook, already the largest photo site on the Web, became the third largest video site on the Internet in terms of unique viewers. Which I find interesting since I can count the total number of times I’ve watched video on Facebook on two hands.
Yet, comScore’s rankings find Facebook retaining third position in August, with 51.6 million unique viewers, trailing VEVO in second (with 62 million) and Google Sites (i.e. YouTube) at 162 million. Viacom Digital lept into fourth place, while Microsoft dropped into fifth, as Yahoo and Aol remained in sixth and seventh, with their unique views on the rise. → Read More
Europe is growing quite fond of Google’s Android operating system, according to market research firm ComScore. Android devices now account for nearly a quarter of all the smartphones used in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK — a dramatic jump over the Google OS’s performance last year.
In July 2010, Android only accounted for 6% of the smartphones used in those five European markets, putting it dead last behind Symbian, Apple, Microsoft, and RIM. One year later, Android has zoomed past their rivals in Cupertino, and now is second only to Symbian in terms of market share. → Read More
comScore’s July traffic numbers are out and similar to June’s findings, Facebook and Twitter both saw record traffic in terms of U.S. unique visitors in the month. In July, Facebook saw a whopping 162 million unique visitors, compared to 160.8 million unique vistors in June, and 157.2 million uniques in May.
Twitter also posted record traffic in its five year history; with 32.8 million unique U.S. visitors in July, up from 30.6 million unique visitors in June, and 27 million unique vistors in May. As we’ve noted in the past, the steady increase in traffic is a big deal for Twitter, which splits traffic between its own mobile clients and the many third-party clients that are used to access the network. And Twitter just completed the switch from the old web interface to its redesigned, feature-rich web app. → Read More
According to audience measurement and tracking firm comScore, U.S. retail e-commerce spending went up 14 percent in the second quarter of this year, compared to the same period a year ago. Online retail spending reached $37.5 billion for the quarter, primarily due to an increase in the number of buyers (up 16 percent), with 70 percent of all Internet users making at least one online purchase in the quarter.
We should note that spending was lower than the first quarter of the year, when comScore tracked $38 billion in retail e-commerce sales. → Read More
comScore is releasing more data that supports the growth in online video in the U.S. The research and analytics firm reports that in June, the U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 6.2 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month, compared to 5.6 billion viewing sessions in May. In June, 178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content for an average of 16.8 hours per viewer.
YouTube saw 149.3 million unique viewers during the month, with 2,311,116 viewing sessions. On average, users spent 5.4 hours on YouTube in June. VEVO came in second with 63 million viewers and 399,503 viewing sessions, followed by Yahoo with 52.7 million viewers. Microsoft and Viacom Digital ranked fourth and fifth respectively. → Read More
The combined search market share of Microsoft’s Bing and Bing-powered Yahoo (AKA BingHoo!) keeps creeping up. The latest market share figures from comScore’s qSearch service are out, and the combined BingHoo! climbed to 30.2 percent market share of total explicit searches (excluding the effects of slideshows, contextual search, and Google Instant), up 0.2 percent from May. Google remained steady at 65.5 percent share.
When you drill down into the data, Bing keeps adding share (up 0.3 point to 14.4 percent), and Yahoo seems to have stabilized at 15.9 percent for the last three months. And Bing’s year-over-year growth in market share is an impressive 41 percent, compared to 6.4 percent growth for Google. That’s not a bad growth rate for Bing two years after launch. → Read More
Professional social network Linkedin surpassed Myspace in terms of traffic to become the No. 2 most visited social networking site in the U.S. in June. LinkedIn, which has seen a resurgence of traffic after its IPO in May, reached an all-time high of 33.9 million unique visitors in June compared to Myspace, which saw 33.5 million unique visitors (that’s down from 34.9 million in May). Hopefully Myspace’s new owners can recharge the troubled social network.
Twitter posted record U.S. traffic, with June as the first month the site saw over 30 million unique visitors. Twitter.com had 30.6 million unique visitors in June, compared to 27 million unique vistors in May. The increase in traffic is actually a big win for Twitter, which splits traffic between its own mobile clients and the many third-party clients that are used to access the network. → Read More
According to a just published report from comScore, smartphones have reached a milestone, with 76.8 million Americans out of 234 million American mobile phone users using devices that offer more computing power than feature (or “dumb”) phones.
Google Android led the platform pack among smartphone owners, with 38.1%of US smartphone subscribers, up 5.1 percent from last quarter. Apple was at #2 with 26.6% of the market up 1.4% from last quarter. RIM came in third with 24.7% share. → Read More
comScore has just released its monthly data on online video engagement, with 176 million U.S. Internet users watching online video content in May for an average of 15.9 hours per viewer. The total U.S. audience engaged in more than 5.6 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month. And 83.3 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
comScore says Google sites (a.k.a. YouTube) was again the top video property in May with 147.2 million unique viewers, 2.17 billion viewing sessions and an average of 311 minutes spent per viewer on the site (that’s an average of 5 hours spent per view in May). → Read More
comScore this morning released some interesting data from its MobiLens service, reporting key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three-month average period ending April 2011.
According to the measurement specialist, 74.6 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during that period, up 13 percent from the three-month period ending in January 2011. Roughly 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices.
Google’s Android ranked as the top mobile platform, with 36.4 percent of U.S. smartphone subscribers. Apple also gained share, assuming the #2 position with 26 percent of the smartphone market. → Read More
Online retail spending reached $38 billion this quarter, up 12 percent from a $33.8 billion a year ago according to Comscore — Due to an increase in the number of buyers (7%), transactions per buy (9%) and tempered by a decline in spending per transaction (4%).
According to a ComScore report released today, nearly half of those orders included free shipping, at 47% versus 53% for Q’1 ’11, 49% versus 51% in Q’4 10 (the holiday season) and 41% versus 59% in Q3 ’10. → Read More
comScore’s mobile subscriber stats are in for the month and Android continues to top U.S. smartphone share over Apple and RIM. Additionally, during the three month average period ending March 2011, Samsung was top handset manufacturer overall with 24.5 percent market share. Google Android led among smartphone platforms with 34.7 percent market share.
The report shows that during the period, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices (this number remained steady from the previous month). But, in terms of smartphones, 72.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months ending in March 2011, up 15 percent from the preceding three-month period. → Read More
Facebook is so large that it now accounts for about one out of every three ad impressions in the U.S., according to the latest statistics from comScore Ad Metrix. In the first quarter of 2011, comScore estimates that 1.1 trillion ads were served to U.S. Internet users, and 346 billion of those (or 31 percent) were on Facebook. This percentage is up from 23 percent in the third quarter of last year.
No other Web property even comes close to Facebook in terms of number of display ads served. Yahoo is No. 2 (with 10 percent share), followed by Microsoft (5 percent), AOL (3 percent), and Google (2.5 percent). These figures are just for their own sites, and do not include their ad networks. → Read More
comScore has just released an interesting study comparing the reach of Apple’s iOS platform to Google’s Android operating system in the U.S. The analytics and data company is reported that Apple’s device with the iOS operating system, including iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches, have a combined platform reach of 37.9 million, outreaching the Android platform by 59 percent.
comScore says that the installed base of iPhones slightly exceeded that of iPod Touches, both of which were approximately twice as high as the number of iPads. Among the 37.9 million consumers with access to the Apple iOS, only 4 million (10.5 percent) accessed the platform via more than one device. And the combined 37.9 million iOS users is 59 percent greater than the 23.8 million combined Android OS installed base, which includes users of both Android phones and Android tablets. Of total mobile subscribers, Apple iOS has a 16.2 percent share compared to a 10.2 percent share held by Android. → Read More
A couple days ago, the headlines blared that Bing now has 30 percent search market share in the U.S. Not so fast. Those numbers were based on Hitwise estimates. Today, comScore came out with its own qsearch estimates, which is what Wall Street analysts following Google report. The comScore numbers tell a slightly different story.
If you include all searches, then the combined market share of Bing (13.3 percent) and Yahoo (17.7 percent), which is powered by Bing, is indeed 31 percent. But this “core” search number includes Google slideshows, contextual search in places like Yahoo News, and Google Instant. Every time you go through a slideshow on Yahoo, for instance, related search results appear below, inflating its numbers.
But ComScore strips out those numbers to come up with what it calls “explicit search” (you know, when someone actually types a query into a search box). When you look at explicit search, Bing and Yahoo combined only had 29.5 percent market share in the first quarter of 2011. → Read More
Online video views continue to rise. ComScore has released data from its Video Metrix service, showing that 174 million Internet users in the United States watched online video content in March for an average of 14.8 hours per viewer. That’s up from 170 million users in February. In total, the U.S. Internet audience engaged in more than 5.7 billion viewing sessions during March (compared to 5 billion in February).
Google Sites (a.k.a. YouTube) was the top online video content property in March with 143.2 million unique viewers. AOL jumped from the seventh spot in February to the second spot in March with 57 million viewers. Yahoo Sites followed with 56.4 million viewers. Microsoft Sites came in fourth with 53.1 million viewers, while VEVO ranked fifth with 52.6 million viewers. Facebook came in sixth with 48.8 million viewers. Google Sites had the highest number of viewing sessions as it neared the 2 billion mark, and highest time spent per viewer at 276 minutes, or 4.6 hours. → Read More
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