Tag: comScore

Google Search Market Share Better Than Ever In The U.S.

comScore has put out its monthly analysis of the United States search market. Google led the charge significantly, which should come as no surprise, but it just so happens that Google achieved its highest number yet at 66.8%. Luckily for Microsoft, Bing also saw its highest yet.

Naturally, Yahoo lost market share, falling to its lowest point ever – this according to Search Engine Land.

Here are the comScore charts:

In May, it seemed as though Yahoo had stopped its downward spiral, but based on these new numbers, it appears that was just a pause in the larger trend.

July 12, 2012
ComScore May 2012 Report on Mobile Market Share

ComScore just released the results of their May 2012 research from their MobiLens service, which reports on trends in the mobile phone industry. In this case case, they were looking at three month period from February 2012 to May 2012.

The study takes into account responses from over 30,000 U.S. mobile phone subscribers. It also listed what the trends were at the beginning February versus the end of May.

Here are the results for smartphone and non-smartphone OEM mobile phones:

No surprise, Samsung came out on top with over 56% share of the OEM market, and relatively no change over the three months. LG also held their share of the market and came in at over 19%.

Apple increased mobile phone market share and went from 13.5% in February to 15% in May. Motorola lost a little going from 12.8% down to 12%. HTC changed very little, slipping from 6.3% down to 6.1%.

Here are the results for top smartphone platform market share:

Google came out on top, rising from 50.1% in February to just under 60% in May. Apple, of course, was next in line holding a 30.2% share in February and rising to 31.9% by May. RIM, somehow actually still in the game at 13.4% in February, but falling to just 11.4% by May.

Microsoft held about 4% share in February and gained very little. Symbian, which held 1.5% in February slipped to just 1.1% by the time May rolled around. So, as you might have expected, Google and Apple control about 90% of the smartphone market.

The results for mobile content usage:

The way people are using their phones remained relatively unchanged from February to May. The only significant change came from people who listened to music using their device which rose from just under 25% in February to 27% in May.

Around 75% use their phones to send text messages. Around 50% of users take advantage of their phone to download apps. Also about 50% used their phone to browse the web. Around 33% used them for gaming, and about 36% used them to access social networks.

So there you have it. While things remain relatively unchanged over the three months from February to May, almost everybody (90%) who has a smartphone is using either an Android or an Apple operating system.

July 2, 2012
comScore Search Rankings: Yahoo Stops the Downward Spiral in May

comScore released its search engine rankings for the United States for May 2012 today and, as far as month-to-month changes go, very little has in fact changed among the market shares claimed by the top search sites. For once, that’s good news for Yahoo.

Google continues to leave a very deep imprint on the cushions of the search engine couch, remaining the number one search brand for the umpteenth month in a row with 66.7% of the market share, which is up .02% from April’s report. Microsoft sites, which include the company’s search engine, Bing, retained the second-highest rank but had a fairly flat month as its market share didn’t budge even a fraction of a percent. Yahoo continued its slow slip in the market but not nearly as bad as previous months while the Ask Network and AOL rounded out the top five.

Microsoft’s sites gained a little bit among explicit core search queries and although the amount was less than one hundred, it was still a 2% increase from last month. Google added over 600 explicit core search queries in May, an increase of 3%. Yahoo, Ask, and AOL, respectively, again rounded out the top five search brands.

In both terms of both market share and explicit core search queries, at least Yahoo was able to stop the skid it’s experienced for much of 2012. From March to April, the company lost 2.4% of its market share to Bing and Google. It’s the middle of the year now and Yahoo has certainly had a tumultuous 2012 thus far, so maybe the second half of the year will see sunnier skies for Yahoo.

comScore notes that last month, 68.9 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google (up 0.2 percentage points versus April), while 25.6 percent of searches were powered by Bing.

June 13, 2012
Facebook Ads: Company Claims Its System is Effective

Facebook ads do work, the company claims, and it has a brand new report to illustrate their point. According to Bloomberg, the company issued a report with ComScore which indicates advertisements on the social media site have helped a number of different companies, including Starbucks and Target. On average, companies that spent $1 on ads received $3 in return. Facebook also claims that roughly 70% of all advertisers get at least a three-fold return on their investment, contrary to what others would have you believe.

“[The data] provides some strong evidence that Facebook can be an effective marketing channel,” explained Andrew Lipsman, vice president of industry analysis at ComScore. “These are strong results.”

This report comes in the wake of General Motors’ pre-IPO claim that the ads they placed on the site didn’t work, a statement Facebook has been attempting to refute ever since. In an effort to change public perception, the company has released data which they feel proves their ad system not only yields result, but does so on a consistent basis.

For example, people who “liked” paid advertisements from a retailer such as Target were 21 percent more likely to visit the establishment. Additionally, those who responded positively to unpaid ads were 38 percent more likely to make a purchase from that business every four weeks. Of course, according to Reuters, 80% of polled individuals claim that the advertisements on Facebook had no influence on them whatsoever.

It’s worth noting that this data does not reflect the effectiveness of Facebook mobile’s advertising, an area where the company continues to struggle.

June 13, 2012
ComScore & Facebook Quantify Social Marketing ROI: Facebook Ads Work

ComScore and Facebook have just published a new report on the paid and earned effects of social marketing efforts. Titled, The Power of Like 2: How Social Marketing Works, it is second report in a series aimed at educating and instructing advertisers on how to best take advantage of and generate ROI with social marketing.

You might remember, ComScore revealed the results of their study last week claiming, Facebook ads do indeed have a positive affect on viewers when it comes time to purchase and select one brand over another. The key to effectiveness however, is repeated and prolonged exposure, such as one might experience on continual visits to the Facebook site.

Here’s what ComScore had to say about social marketing in their latest blog post:

For too long, brands’ focus on Fan acquisition as a primary indicator of success has ignored the ways in which social marketing actually works to achieve marketing objectives like reach, brand resonance, and ultimately sales. By understanding the core elements of maximizing reach on Facebook – Fan Reach, Engagement, and Amplification – brands can benchmark their performance against other brands and devise strategies to improve on these dimensions and deliver measurable social marketing ROI.

One example from the white paper illustrates these effects for Starbucks, one of the largest and most influential brands in the social media universe. Our research analyzed the effects of Starbucks earned media exposure on Facebook and the lift in Starbucks in-store purchase incidence in the four weeks following exposure. The results showed a statistically significant positive lift in purchase incidence in each of the four weeks following exposure, and an increasing cumulative lift during those time periods.

Why are these findings so significant? First, they provide quantifiable evidence that earned media exposure can be valuable in influencing consumer behavior – and specifically the sort of behaviors that brands most want to induce, such as purchase. Secondly, they demonstrate that there is a latent branding effect that continues to drive increasing lift in purchase behavior weeks following exposure. Both of these conclusions provide more evidence that Facebook can be very valuable as a branding medium.

While the effects of social media advertising and marketing are still evolving and being documented, this new study from ComScore in cooperation with Facebook is a valuable resource that could be used to help advertisers and marketers maximize their efforts on social platforms. As you have seen, tracking down the direct conversion from viewing to buying can be a complicated process, but ComScore seems pretty confident in their results.

June 12, 2012
Multi-Screen Consumers Most Engaged, Loyal Consumers

A new study released today by comScore demonstrates that a television is no longer the only place that consumers are getting their watchable jollies thanks to computers, tablets, and smartphones all capable of delivering your favorite sitcoms and dramas. This incorporation of multiple screens into the consumer experience is reshaping how people develop loyalty to certain brands and how they stay engaged with content and brands simultaneously across different platforms.

That people are using non-televisions to watch traditionally television-delivered things isn’t really anything new, and while the new study doesn’t indicate any immediate upheaval in the way that brands target consumers, it does reinforce a trend that more people are going online-only when it comes to where people watch shows. More, consumers are increasingly going for the cross-platform, multi-screen experience for their entertainment and, although this might be obvious, the more screens a person has surrounding them, the more engaged and loyal those consumers are to a brand.

The study, which collected information from 10,000 participants in the United States and followed the reach of 10 broadcast network and cable brands, shows that 25% of consumers engaged with a brand via online access and 12% did so through online video. TV is still the screen de jour for most consumers, though, as 90% were TV engagers. What’s more is that 11% of consumers were the digital-only types while another 17% were doing the multi-screen dance. A solid 72% however remain committed to their TVs as the sole source of access to a brand.

“Once TV-centric media brands now engage with their consumers across a variety of digital touch-points,” said Joan FitzGerald, comScore VP of TV & Cross-Media Solutions. “While this enhances the quality of brand engagement, it also increases the complexity of media planning and analysis by orders of magnitude.”

Those consumers who were either multi-screen swingers and sought out online video content of a brand appear to be the most loyal, although that isn’t entirely surprising given that most of the time when a consumer goes for a brand online, they’re likely doing it more actively than passively, as is the case with television ads.

It’s peculiar that digital platforms aren’t supplanting TVs but rather just becoming a second media provider that runs alongside TVs. Does anybody ever watch TV nowadays without a tablet or smartphone somewhere within arm’s length? These implements for more media are never far from our grasp and nobody wants to choose one over the other: they want to have all the MTV they can handle. The study found that 60% of consumers accessed TV and online content of a brand during concurrent 30-minute intervals. 29% of consumers were dabbling around on Facebook while they watched TV, suggesting that it’s no longer enough to simply sit down and watch something. People want to share their invaluable opinions about tonight’s episode of ‘Law & Order’ or complain about the results of ‘American’s Next Top Model’ in real-time, not tomorrow at the office watering hole.

The most unsurprising aspect of this report is reflected in the age demographics of consumers. Overwhelmingly, more people under the age of 34 had made the transition to digital-only engagement but adults over 50 haven’t quite made the jump to abandon television altogether. Instead, the over-50 crowd is more likely to go the multi-screen route and to be users of TV and online video.

Consumers of all walks of life want to be able to access content across different mediums and platforms. This report from comScore indicates that there’s a whole new breed of media consumers growing out there who aren’t shackled to a TV set and would rather access material via some internet-connected device.

Hopefully studies like these will make it apparent to companies like HBO that their neolithic attitude toward providing access to content really needs to be updated.

June 11, 2012
Facebook Stock Rises after ComScore Finds Ads Work

Yesterday, ComScore released details of their latest study on Facebook advertising and the news is pretty good. Despite many claims and self-report surveys declaring the ads simply don’t work, research suggests repeated exposure to branded messages, does in fact, impact subsequent purchasing decisions.

In what could be a strange coincidence, Facebook shares are on the rise again today. Currently stocks are trading $27.28 up from $26.55 this morning. It’s not a monumental increase, and it’s still a far cry from the $38 they were asking on the IPO launch day, but it’s something.

The results of the ComScore study will be revealed at the upcoming ARF Audience Measurement 7.0 conference in New York next week. Essentially what they found is that prolonged and repeated exposure to brand messages does influence consumer’s attitudes and opinions when it comes time to actually purchase. In other words, exposure to paid Facebook ads does lead users to select one brand over another.

Along with the study, ComScore will also publish a new white paper entitled, The Power of Like 2: How Social Marketing Works, which features critical new insights on the impact of media exposure. Their press release regarding their latest findings criticizes previous surveys that report on Facebook’s effectiveness, and claim there’s an inherent problem with their methods.

ComScore comments in their release:

In this particular case, it appears that the research method used was a survey, which asked users about whether or not they had ever been influenced to purchase as a result of exposure on Facebook. While surveys can be useful in assessing ad effectiveness lifts across attitudinal dimensions such as brand awareness, favorability and purchase intent, people tend not to provide very accurate assessments of their own behavior. And their accuracy in recalling their own behavior over an extended period of time can be especially unreliable. People might be able to accurately tell you how many times they have eaten at a restaurant in the past week, but they would probably do a poor job estimating that number over the past three months.

This inability to accurately recall past behavior also seems to be evident in another survey response where a higher percentage of Facebook users say they are spending less time on the site today vs. six months ago. comScore’s behavioral measurement of engagement, where time spent on sites is electronically and passively observed, indicates the opposite – that time spent per user is actually up a few percent in that period. In the case of the internet, people spend time doing dozens if not hundreds of things online each day. It is highly unlikely that their recall of the exact sites they visited, the amount of time they spent there or their specific exposure to brand messages will be closely aligned with what actually happened.

More importantly, people generally don’t like to believe that advertising actually has an effect on their behavior, even though time and time again various forms of advertising research have shown that it does. So, how people respond to a question asking whether or not Facebook advertising (or any other advertising for that matter) has affected their purchase behavior may end up having little correlation with their actual behavior.

It’s a bit of good news for Facebook and possibly for investors, after all, revenues are pretty much hinged on advertising growth. Is it the reason for their shares increasing in price? I don’t know if we can claim that, but it may factor in. We’ll know a little more next week after ComScore publishes their findings and presents at the conference. We’ll keep you posted.

June 8, 2012
ComScore: Tablet Owners Watch a Lot of Video

ComScore’s recent study of tablet computer owners revealed that one in four smartphone owners also use a tablet computer and that, those using tablets are three times more likely to use them for watching streaming video. Ten percent of those watched videos on a daily basis.

Who’s using tablet computers is also pretty interesting. The demographic information from ComScore reveals that smartphone users and tablet users closely resemble each other. The breakdown for gender is about 50%, with 49.2% males, and 50.8% female in regard to tablets. It’s 51.6% and 48.4% for smartphones respectively.

The largest population of tablet users is 25-34 year-olds (24.4%), but is closely followed by the 35-44 age bracket (21.4%). The smallest populations were 13-17 year-olds (7.3%) and over 65+ at just 6.8%.

Smartphone usage, as I already mentioned, is similar. The largest population again was 25-34 year-olds (25.3%). They were closely followed by the 35-44 age bracket at 21.2%. The smallest categories were the same, 13-17 at 6.5% and 65+ at 5.3%.

Three income brackets make up over 75% of tablet users. $50,000 to $75,000 makes up about 19%, $75,000 to $100,000 makes up about the same, and $100,000+ accounts for 37.7%.

Smartphones users shape up about the same way with $50,000 to $75,000 coming in at around 19% again, and $75,000 to $100,000 right around 16%. $100,000+ came in at 33.4%. No surprise, people who can afford the technology take advantage of it the most.

9.5% of tablet owners watch television programming on their device everyday. Only 2.9% of smartphone owners do the same. 53% of tablet owners admit to watching at least one video a month, where only 20% of smartphone owners admit to doing the same.

It makes sense, a smartphone screen is rather small for extended watching, where having a tablet almost compels you to view online frequently. A phone is still mostly just a phone, where a tablet is more likely a laptop. Interesting stats, none the less.

Mark Donovan, SVP of Mobile at ComScore comments on tablet computer use:

“Tablets are one of the most rapidly adopted consumer technologies in history and are poised to fundamentally disrupt the way people engage with the digital world both on-the-go and perhaps most notably, in the home,”

“It’s not surprising to see that once consumers get their hands on their first tablet, they are using them for any number of media habits including TV viewing.”

It’s hard to imagine tablets are so popular since they were only introduced just a couple years ago. As prices begin to fall and the competition increases, I’ll bet these trends will increase rapidly.

June 8, 2012
ComScore Reveals Facebook’s Positive Brand Influence

ComScore is getting ready to release a new study on Facebook’s social marketing and they plan to do it at the upcoming ARF Audience Measurement 7.0 conference in New York, along with the release of their new white paper, The Power of Like 2: How Social Marketing Works.

What they’ve discovered is that Facebook’s brand exposure actually does have a significantly positive effect on subsequent purchasing.

Contrary to popular belief, click through rates are a relatively weak indicator of performance and what they call, “view-through” may be what’s of more interest when it comes to brand impression. What they found is the impact or impression is the result of a cumulative effect taking place over weeks or months after constantly being exposed to the message or brand (or both).

ComScore wants to make it clear that previous polls assessing ad effectiveness overlook the unreliability factor when people report on their own behaviors. They point out a Reuters headline claiming,“Facebook Comments, Ads Don’t Sway Most Users: Poll”.

ComScore comments:

“In this particular case, it appears that the research method used was a survey, which asked users about whether or not they had ever been influenced to purchase as a result of exposure on Facebook.”

“While surveys can be useful in assessing ad effectiveness lifts across attitudinal dimensions such as brand awareness, favorability and purchase intent, people tend not to provide very accurate assessments of their own behavior. And their accuracy in recalling their own behavior over an extended period of time can be especially unreliable.”

“More importantly, people generally don’t like to believe that advertising actually has an effect on their behavior, even though time and time again various forms of advertising research have shown that it does.”

“It’s time to advance this discussion of marketing and advertising effectiveness, but doing so requires that the debate centers on meaningful measurement approaches, not on self-reported recollection.”

We’ll learn more next week after the report is published and the results are revealed at the upcoming conference in New York. In the meantime, pay close attention to those ads you’re constantly bombarded with and truly examine what role they play in shaping your opinions and attitudes.

June 7, 2012
ComScore Report: Surviving the Upfronts in a Cross-Media World

ComeScore just released a report on cross-media advertising and marketing efforts and what the matured state of online video brings to the effectiveness of a well-rounded campaign.

The report features many actionable insights for advertisers, agencies and media buyers who are considering incorporating digital video formats into their current media efforts.

Judy Bahary, SVP of Marketing Solutions at ComScore comments on the new report entitled Surviving the Upfronts in a Cross-Media World:

“With the digital upfronts in their second year, more advertisers are considering adding digital video to their media mix in long-form TV programming and short-form video,”

“Our research shows an incredible synergy between TV and digital video formats when used together in cross-media campaigns, driving effectiveness levels higher than either medium used on its own. As the online video market continues to develop, we should see it evolve from its current supporting role to an essential part of media planning in the annual upfronts.”

Key findings highlighted in the report include:

* The online video audience has reached a point of near saturation at approximately180 million monthly unique viewers, but average engagement levels are rising as it continues to play a more prominent role in the online experience.

* Adding a digital video component to a TV media plan can increase the effective reach of the campaign in a very efficient manner.

* Digital video ad formats are just as effective as TV ads. But TV and digital video have a synergistic effect when used together, making this media mix more effective than either one on its own.

* Multi-Screen consumers are a fast-growing segment and need to be marketed to on multiple screens in order for campaigns to achieve optimal reach and frequency levels.

* Younger age segments are generally more receptive to digital advertising than TV, highlighting the importance of incorporating digital video into the media buying and planning process.

The report is meant to serve as a guide for navigating the cross-media landscape of today for those in the industry. ComScore offers a complimentary download of the report on their site and you can find it by following this link .

June 5, 2012
Samsung, Texting Still Tops With US Mobile Users

Is this where Apple’s reluctance to develop devices for different price ranges comes back to bite them? I mean, a quick look at the Apple stock prices means you don’t need to shed a tear for them, but the fact that Apple ranks just above Motorola in terms of US mobile device users is, at the very least, surprising.

The fact that both Samsung and LG significantly outrank Apple only adds to it.

Thanks to the latest comScore Mobile Market Share report, we find that not only do the Apple challengers have a healthy share of the US Mobile Market, Google’s Android OS also has a strong lead on iOS. Granted, this is directly related to the multiple device support Android features, but the fact remains: Android has close to a 20 percent lead on Apple’s iOS. comScore’s tables. First, the top manufacturers:

The operating system market share:

As for activities, it’s pretty clear very few people use their cellphones, er, mobile devices to make calls anymore. By far, the most popular activity in the United States when it comes to mobile devices is text messaging. By a wide, wide margin. The other activities include downloading apps, using the mobile browser, mobile social media use, playing games, and listening to music. Apparently, “making a phone call” is a given or something that’s just not that popular anymore. While the former makes the most sense, I’m still leaning towards the latter:

What, exactly, are some conclusions that you can draw from this data? First, if iOS was usable on more devices than just Apple, who knows where the market share numbers would be? But then again, using Apple’s operating system on a non-Apple device just wouldn’t be right, would it? Does the fact that Samsung and LG make cheaper devices than Apple play a part here? Undoubtedly, but there’s also the distinct possibility that not everyone in the US wants an iPhone, either.

The numbers reflect all of that.

June 1, 2012
Instagram Traffic Up 78% in April

Instagram, which became slang for $1 billion in Silicon Valley as of late, saw a 78% increase in unique viewers in April, according to comScore, making it the fastest growing internet property in that time frame. MLB and Directv sites came in at second and third, with 66% and 42% increases respectively.

Instagram’s April gains are good news for Facebook, as the majority of users access the platform via Android or iOS, which some have feared may be the downfall of the social network, concerning a potential problem with being able to monetize mobile ad content. Instagram saw roughly 14.6 million unique users in April, up from 8.2 million in March. Still, the bump in traffic likely had something to do with the launch of an Instagram app for Android, as well as the Facebook acquisition.

Regarding the Facebook merger, Instagram is presently on a trajectory to lose over $200 million in stock, after the social network’s botched IPO. At its height, Instagram was worth $1.243 billion, and now there’s no telling how low Facebook stock can go. Shares initially went on sale for $38 a pop, and are presently sitting at about $29.50, which has prompted some angry investors just just start suing people.

[via: VentureBeat]

May 29, 2012
Tumblr Breaks Into comScore’s Top 50 Websites

comScore has just released its top 50 ranking for web properties in the U.S. for the month of April, and microblogging platform Tumblr earned a spot in the field, coming in at #47, with roughly 23.5 million unique visitors.

According to its site, Tumblr currently hosts 56.9 million blogs with 23.7 billion posts, all handled by 105 employees. The NYC-based company was founded in 2007, and interestingly places itself at #12 on the internet, with 16,124,006,400 average monthly hits, contrary to comScore’s April report. Same difference – Tumblr is popular.

The comScore report, based on data from its Media Metrix service, puts Google Sites on top, with roughly 189 million unique hits. Microsoft and Yahoo! are almost tied for the #2 spot, while Facebook, AOL and Amazon round out the top six.

Somehow MySpace, which presently resembles a non-functional, dadaistic collage compiled by a mandrill, was able to garner 36 million hits in April. In the fall of 2011, MySpace owner Justin Timberlake told MTV news “I don’t have anything on my plate other than think-tanking a lot of different ideas for MySpace, which doesn’t require a lot of my literally being present – I can come up with ideas on the golf course. I can come up with ideas on a mountain while I’m snowboarding.” Makes a bit of sense.

May 25, 2012
comScore Submits Latest Top 50 Websites

comScore’s latest report on the top web properties in the U.S., based on data from its Media Metrix service, puts Google Sites on top for the month of April, 2012:

Microsoft and Yahoo! are almost tied for the #2 spot, while Facebook, AOL and Amazon round out the top six. comScore reports that general web traffic regarding news sites was up in April, and also noted that sites relating to beauty and style had also gained popularity. Jeff Hackett, executive VP of comScore states, “The general news category reached an all-time high in April, reaching 5 out of 6 U.S. internet users during the month.”

General news sites were up 12% in April at 183 million hits, and Yahoo! News came in at #1, with 89.1 million viewers. HPMG came in second, and CNN came in third, with 59.4 and 57.4 million hits respectively.

As for the top 50 ad focus ranking, Google Ad Network saw 204 million unique visitors, with a 92.2% reach, taking the top spot. Interestingly, Facebook came in at #16, with 158 million visitors, reaching 71.6%

During the aftermath of Facebook’s IPO ordeal, investors have been weary of Facebook’s inability to monetize its ad content, especially for mobile, the mode of which more and more users are adopting to access the site. Still, Facebook’s April ad focus ranking isn’t so bad realistically – Sure, Google’s Ad Network blows it out of the water, but Zuckerberg and Co. still compete with the likes of Yahoo! Sites, and Microsoft. Though, these rankings don’t really define actual results – GM recently pulled its ad campaign from the social network, and on a much smaller level, a New Orleans pizza joint getting its start was unable to sell even one pizza using Facebook ads.

May 25, 2012
Yahoo Lost a Considerable Amount of Viewers in April

comScore released the online video rankings for April today and in what is Jack’s complete lack of surprise, Google reigns for yet another month. The most significant change in the rankings for April, though, is the dip in total unique views that Yahoo! had, dropping over 6 million viewers from March.

Yahoo managed to still secure the spot as the second-most visited site for online video with 53.6 million unique visitors, but the gap between the site and the third-ranked online video site, VEVO, has narrowed substantially. In all, the internet-enabled people of the United States took in nearly 37 billion videos in April, which is on par with last month’s figures.

As far as advertising goes, Americans (im)patiently waited through 9.5 billion video ads in April. Once again, Hulu was the top purveyor of video ads by feeing the hungry eyes of video watchers with almost 1.6 billion ads. The rankings beneath Hulu roughly remained the same although SpotXchange stormed the top ten list to claim the number six spot. In all, video ads reached 52% of the U.S. population and presented nearly 60 ads per viewer. The average length of ads in April was a little less than 30 seconds whereas the average length of actual videos was almost 6:30. Not a bad return, but those ads accounted for 20.5% of all videos watched.

The leaders among the YouTube partner channels also remained largely unchanged in April, with VEVO topping the list once again with over 48 million unique viewers, nearly equalling the channel’s numbers from March. However, YouTube fans seem to have weened themselves off from clips of the The Ellen Show as it disappeared from the list in April after hovering around for the past couple of months.

Of the internet-y people in the United States, 84.5% of them watched an online video in April. Given that online video hardly seems avoidable these days if you spend any amount of time on the internet, it’s rather impressive that over 15% of internet users dodged all online videos last month. You must all be very well read.

May 18, 2012
Facebook’s Master Plan to Colonize the Earth in Likes

Earlier today, we shared with you the staggering statistic of Facebook users in different countries around the world. For some of those countries, like New Zealand and Brazil, people are so over the moon with the social networking site that the word “internet” might as well be spelled F-A-C-E-B-O-O-K.

Now, lend us your ear for the second chart-busting hit of the day: a detailed graph by way of comScore that depicts Facebook’s unstoppable conquest of various social sites throughout the world. No region of the world was off limits and no social network was invulnerable to Facebook’s thundering march to 1 billion users worldwide (which is well within reach for the indigo colossus).

Although the graph doesn’t include the milestone, the first sign that Facebook could become the shining blue monolith around which we all banged our drums all day and all night was in January 2009 when the site overtook MySpace to become the most visited social networking site in the United States.

comScore fills in the gaps:

Over the past 27 months, or roughly 800 days, Facebook has overtaken local competitors in 8 additional markets and is now the most popular social networking site in 39 out of the 44 countries on which comScore reports individually. Only China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and Vietnam have different market leaders in terms of audience size.

Interestingly, 3 out of these 5 countries rank among the fastest growing global markets for Facebook. In Vietnam, Facebook increased its user base by 270 percent over the past year, while it grew 84 percent in Japan and 78 percent in South Korea.

comScore also points out the continued popularity and growth of Facebook’s mobile app on both iOS and Android platforms, which is something of a sensitive issue recently in regard to Facebook’s relationship with companies that may advertise on the site.

And hey, did you heard this news that Facebook’s making an initial public offer?

May 17, 2012
E-Commerce Spending Up 17%

Internet marketing research company comScore released its first quarter, 2012 U.S. internet retail sales estimates today, recording a 17% sales increase over last year, totaling roughly $44.3 billion. The latest numbers mark the tenth instance where quarter-over-quarter sales have risen.

comScore cites that in Q1, 2012, digital content and subscriptions, computer software, consumer electronics, jewelry and watches and event tickets were the most popular online product purchases. Also, 48.8% of e-commerce transactions included free shipping, the highest ever outside of a holiday shopping season. During the Q1 period, 38% of tablet users bought something online, with clothing being the most popular items. While its been reported that many retailers lack online storefronts optimized for shopping via a tablet device, U.S. consumers have come to expect a sort of integrated shopping experience, spanning smartphones, tablets, desktops and physical, brick-and-mortar retail storefronts. Online retail for tablet optimization is advancing, and a higher percentage of tablet-based purchases should be expected.

comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni states, “The first quarter of this year was especially strong for retail e-commerce as we returned to year-over-year growth rates in the high teens, numbers we haven’t seen since 2007 – While the economic recovery continues to be painfully slow, the channel shift to e-commerce appears to be accelerating. This presents opportunities but also challenges for brick-and-mortar retailers if they can’t hold onto their offline market share in the digital world.”

An undesired effect of a sort of digital window shopping are instances of consumers using brick-and-mortar showrooms to get a hands-on look at items they’d shopped for online. This practice is one of the reasons why Best Buy has been closing stores. Customers have begun plainly using big box locations as a place to test drive products they plan to buy online anyway, for usually cheaper.

May 9, 2012
ComScore Shows Google Dominates the Mobile Web

ComScore, a leading digital metrics company, today released details from its report on social media brands. The results were obtained using comScore’s new mobile behavioral measuring service, which the company calls “Mobile Metrix 2.0.” Using the measurements, comScore was able to rank social and other websites based on the number of unique visitors from smartphones in March 2012.

Not surprisingly, Google topped the rankings with nearly 94 million unique visitors. This means that nearly 97% of all smartphone users visited a Google site in March. Google is trailed by Facebook, which had around 78 million unique visitors, or about 80% of smartphone users. What’s interesting about these numbers, however, is that smartphone users accessed these sites from apps, rather than web browsers, about 80% of the time. This is a trend followed for most sites listed in the chart seen below. It appears that smartphone users prefer to segregate their web browsing by using app interfaces and overlays.

ComScore also compared the most popular mobile apps for iOS and Android users. Both lists were fairly similar, with each platform’s respective app market, Google Maps, Facebook, and YouTube in the top-five for both. It’s also clear that the pictionary-style game Draw Something was a short-lived fad, appearing nowhere on the list just a month after being sold to Zynga.

Though Google’s search, Maps, and YouTube apps give it the overall edge for smartphone visitors, no social networks come close to Facebook. The world’s most popular social network beats runner-up Twitter by a three-to-one margin with its previously mentioned 78 million unique visitors. Facebook also dominates when it comes to user engagement, averaging 441.3 minutes per visitor each month.

Though these numbers are not totally surprising, they are instructive. The fact that smartphone users prefer apps over web browsing shows just how ingrained Apple’s app system has become in smartphone culture. It won’t be stopping with smartphones, either: our desktop operating systems and TV sets will soon be “app-enabled.”

What do you think about these comScore numbers? Leave a comment below and let us know.

(picture courtesy of Google)

May 7, 2012
comScore Submits Latest Mobile Market Rankings

comScore’s latest survey of roughly 30,000 mobile users via its MobiLens service produced the typical findings of very little difference in the mobile market over a three month period, though Apple and its iPhone have actually achieved a full number in percentage of change regarding devices in use. Since a posting of the same study conducted over the prior three months, Samsung still sells the most devices, with 26% of the market share in the U.S., while iPhone remains at 12.8%

Below is a comparison of the two most recent mobile EOM surveys:

Google’s Android now accounts for 51% of all smartphone operating systems, which might turn into even more spectacular damages awarded to Oracle over the search giant’s misuse of Java APIs in developing the OS, depending on what the court decides. Apple’s iOS is also on the up, seeing an increase of 1.1% to a market share of 30.7%. The declining RIM network was down 3.7%, and Windows Phone, which is doing better in emerging markets overseas, saw a decline of 0.8%:

The biggest change in mobile content usage was an increase in app downloads by 2.4%, to 50% on the nose. It would appear that exactly 74.3% of mobile users at all times send text messages:

The slight increase in app usage might be especially good news for RIM – back in February, that company’s Vice President for Developer Relations Alec Saunders pointed out that RIM garners more app downloads than both Android and iOS.

May 1, 2012
Smartphones Overtake Feature Phones in Japan

With budget smartphones flooding the cell phone market worldwide, it is getting harder and harder for manufacturers of feature phones to keep up. Though feature phones are still successful in new markets for cell phone service around the world, smartphones are the inevitable leaders of the pack. Nokia’s CEO, Stephen Elop, admitted as much in a dismal earnings report last week.

Today ComScore, which provides metrics on all things digital, released data that shows smartphones have overtaken feature phones as the most acquired type of cell phone device in Japan. Android phones accounted for 61.4% of the smartphones acquired, with Apple iOS phones coming in with 34.2%

“Smartphones surpassed feature phones as the most acquired device type in February 2012, signaling an important shift in Japan’s mobile market,” said Daizo Nishitani, vice president of comScore Japan KK. “The rise in smartphone adoption opens the door to tremendous opportunity for publishers and advertisers to expand their reach and increase engagement with key consumer segments through this channel. Japanese mobile phone users were already highly engaged with their devices, but with the added functionality and higher levels of mobile media consumption we should expect to see significant changes in behavior among the Japanese mobile population in 2012.”

The data is based on a three-month period from November of last year to February 2012. Sharp was the most popular manufacturer of mobile devices during that period. Though Apple doesn’t crack the top five seen in this chart, it did experience the most gain in market share during those three months:

Naturally, with Apple’s iOS being tied to its hardware exclusively, Apple also saw a gain in its share of the mobile OS market in Japan. It gained 1.3% from November to February, taking its share straight from Microsoft devices such as Windows phones. Android held steady, running on around 61% of the total acquired devices over the period.

What do you think? Should manufacturers of feature phones be terrified of the smartphones to come? Will Apple make significant progress against Android in Japan, or will they both keep taking Microsoft’s small share of the pie? Leave a comment below and let us know.

April 25, 2012
comScore Search Engine Rankings For March 2012

comScore released its search engine rankings for March 2012 today and, much like the surface of the moon, movement remains largely nonexistent. In February, Google, the monthly leader in search, claimed 66.4% of the market share whereas in March, the search engine claimed… 66.4% of the market share. Similarly, Microsoft, and by Microsoft we mean to say Bing, remained at exactly the same market share in March as it had in February with 15.3%. The biggest shake-up (and I use that phrase completely incorrectly) to happen this month was the 0.1% decrease in Yahoo!’s stake of the search market while AOL increased 0.1%.

18.4 billion explicit core searches were accrued in March, with Google netting 12.2 billion of them, roughly 6,000,000 more than February. Bing saw a smaller increase of less than 200,000 and totalled 2.8 billion searches, 5% more than February, in order to land at its well-lived in abode of second place.

One final note of search trivia: For March, 68.6 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google, while 25.9 percent of searches were powered by Bing. At least Yahoo! appears to have slowed down its decline in the search race this month.

April 11, 2012