Wednesday 30 November 2011

American Online Christmas Sales by Week 2007-2011



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Source:  Data from comScore, reported in a press release, 29th November 2011

Monday 28 November 2011

The Economist's apps are accessed by 650,000 devices each month

"The Economist apps are currently available on iPhone, iPad and Android Smartphone.
- Since our launch in November 2010, the apps have been downloaded to over 2m iPhones and iPads.
- Every month over 650,000 unique devices access The Economist app content."

84% of iPhone users say that they are loyal to the brand

"Apple is well ahead of rivals in building brand loyalty among its users in a mobile market where the key brands are rushing to build as large a foothold as possible, a study by research firm GfK showed.
Some 84 percent of iPhone users said they would pick iPhone also when they replace their cellphone, while 60 percent of consumers who use smartphones running Google's Android said they would stick with phones using the same software.
Only 48 percent of people using Research In Motion's cellphones said they would stay loyal to their Blackberrys, the study showed.
More than 70 percent of consumers said they would stick with their phones due to their seamless integration of features and access to content."
Source:  Research by GfK, reported by Reuters, 25th November 2011
Methodology:  "The research firm interviewed around 4,500 people in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, China, the United States and Japan."

Friday 25 November 2011

The Daily Mail online had nearly 79m unique visitors in October 2011

"Daily Mail website Mail Online set a new monthly traffic record in October, recording just less than 79 million unique browsers during the period.
The figure, reported in the latest results from the Audit Bureau of Circulation, represents a 58 per cent year-on-year traffic increase for the site, which has been Britain's highest-traffic news site for the past 13 months consecutively.
According to Associated Newspapers, which publishes the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Mail Online, just 27.8 million of its monthly unique browsers come from the UK.
In terms of traffic, Mail Online is the second largest English-language news website in the world, after the New York Times site.
The Guardian was the second most popular site, with an average of 3.3 million users per day, compared with Mail Online's 4.6 million. The Guardian didn't report a monthly figure.
The Telegraph was the second highest traffic site, averaging 2,292,052 unique browsers a day and 45,310,524 for the month."
Source:  ABC figures, reported by Journalism.co.uk, 24th November 2011

Online game Bigpoint generated revenues of over €2m in 4 days on sales of just one virtual item

"German online games publisher and developer Bigpoint made over 2 million euros of revenue this month on a single in-game item purchase.
The company's free-to-play MMO space shooter DarkOrbit, which launched in December 2006, has seen 66 million registered users in total over its five year life.
Earlier this month, BigPoint sold a special in-game item called 'The 10th Drone', which cost 1,000 euros to purchase, for a total of four days.
Simon Davis, producer on DarkOrbit, has now told Gamesbrief founder and Gamasutra contributor Nicholas Lovell that over 2,000 of these items were sold, meaning that over 2 million euros was spent on this single item over the course of four days."
Source:  Gamasutra, 23rd November 2011

Thursday 24 November 2011

20% of the page views at FT.com come from mobile devices

"The Financial Times has registered another digital milestone with the FT Web App seeing over one million users since its launch in June.
Available on the iPhone and iPad by visiting app.ft.com directly from the device’s web browser, almost half of its users have downloaded a shortcut to their iPad or iPhone home screen, replicating a native app experience.
The launch of the FT Web App has significantly boosted mobile and tablet traffic. FT.com now sees 20% of total page views and 15% of new B2C subscriptions each week coming directly from mobile and tablet devices. These readers are also more engaged, with FT.com users who register on mobiles and tablets 2.5 times more likely to subscribe, as well as being more active in giving feedback."
Source:  Blog post from the Financial Times, 18th November 2011

Google has activated over 200m Android devices

"Google shared some interesting statistics about its Android platform during the Google Music press conference held in Los Angeles on Wednesday. More than 200 million Android smartphones and other devices have been activated around the world. That's up from 100 million six months ago. That's an incredible amount of growth for a platform that didn't exist three years ago."

Top 10 most Tweeted moments ever

As at 24th November 2011
(Rank - Event - Tweets per Second - Date)
"10 - Osama Bin Laden’s Death - 5,106 - 1st May 2011
9 - East Coast Earthquake - 5,449 - 23rd August 2011
8 - Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami - 5,530 - 14th March 2011
7 - Last Game of the 2011 NBA Finals - 5,531 - 12th June 2011
6 - UEFA Champions League (Final) - 6,303 - 28th May 2011
5 - 2011 BET Awards - 6,436 - 26th June 2011
4 - New Year’s Day, Japan - 6,939 - 1st January 2011
3 - Brazil Eliminated From Copa América - 7,166 - 17th July 2011
2 - FIFA Women’s World Cup - 7,196 - 17th July 2011
1 - Beyoncé Reveals Baby Bump - 8,868 - 28th August 2011"
Source:  BusinessInsider, 22nd November 2011

Spotify has 2.5m paying subscribers

"This week is Thanksgiving in the US. And we’ve got our own reasons to give thanks too.
Fanfare! Drum roll! Yes, we’re excited to announce that we’ve now welcomed 2.5 million paying subscribers to the service.
So we’d like to say a big thank you to all our subscribers, new and old. Keep spreading the good news about Spotify!
Of course, we’ll continue to focus on providing you with the best music service possible. We’ve got some exciting developments in the works, which we’ll share with you very soon."

Wednesday 23 November 2011

More smartphones were shipped to China in Q3 2011 than to the US

"China has overtaken the U.S. as the largest market for smartphones by volume, according to one firm’s estimates.
Nearly 24 million smartphones were shipped to providers in China during the third quarter of 2011, compared to 23.3 million units in the U.S., data from Boston-based research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics suggests.The growth of China’s smartphone market has been significant, up 58% from just the previous quarter. Shipments of smartphones in the U.S. fell 7% from Q2 2011.
(Note the firm’s estimates only calculate the number of devices shipped, not sold, and that the U.S. still leads the market by smartphone revenue.)"
Source:  Mashable, 23rd November 2011

There are over 200,000 LEGO videos on YouTube, and over 1m LEGO photos on Flickr

"The book is full color, hardcover, with 304 pages. There are 12 chapters that cover topics such as: The History of LEGO, Minifig Mania and LEGO Art.
I love some of the tidbits included in the text, such as the fact that there are over 200,000 LEGO videos on YouTube! Wow, who knew? Now I want to go waste hours watching them  Or what about the over 1 million photos that are tagged with LEGO on Flickr?"
Source:  From a review of the book Cult of LEGO, on the site The Gadgeteer, 24th October 2011
(Does anyone have a better source for the stats..?)

90% of the money spent on apps is spent on iOS apps

"Apple devices still hammering the rest when it comes to real spending by punters.
Analyst Gene Munster with Piper Jaffray made his projection earlier this week, and also said that he believes Android Market has generated a miserly seven per cent of the amount Apple's App Store has grossed in its lifetime.
He also claims that about $330 million has been generated on the Android Market, and that only 1.3 per cent of the apps on it are paid.
Munster doesn't see Android making up too much ground in revenues despite the gains its making in overall usage."

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Average clicks and shares on Facebook by day of week



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The data shows the number of clicks and shares on Facebook content as a percentage of the number of Fans.
Source:  Edgerank Checker, 16th November 2011

The age distribution of friends on Facebook



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(What it means is that if you're 20 it's likely that the largest age group of your Facebook friends will be 20, if you're 30 it will be 30 and so on)
Source:  Anatomy of Facebook, by the Facebook Data Team, 22nd November 2011, based on analysis of over 700m Facebook members and their friendships

Over 20% of the UK Nintendo 3DS owners Bought Legends of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in the first 2 days of release

"Nintendo enjoyed a good week for 3DS thanks to the Zelda re-release.
Ocarina of Time 3D made it to No.2 in the chart upon its debut last week, and according to GfK Chart-Track data was bought by over 20 per cent of the handheld’s userbase in its first two days.
That sets the device up well for the summer selling season – a natural uplift for handheld games according to Nintendo UK head David Yarnton – and the crop of strong first-party games on the horizon."

Monday 21 November 2011

European Mobile Benchmarks September 2011



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Source:  Data from comScore for the 3 months to September 2011, reported in a press release, 21st November 2011

There are 110m 3G subscriptions in China

"Of the combined total of 109.67 mln 3G subs, China Mobile holds 41.3%, China Unicom 30.2%, and China Telecom 28.4%. Of total new mobile subs added in October, China Mobile took 44.57%, dropping its share of China's total mobile user base to 67.14%. China Unicom's share of the total mobile user base rose to 20.22%, while China Telecom's share increased for the 34th straight month, rising from 12.45% at the end of September to 12.64% at the end of October."

A quarter of Christmas shopping-related searches in Australia come from mobile devices

"While Christmas Day may be 6 weeks away, the Christmas shopping season is already in full swing, and everyone wants to know what’s in store for the millions of businesses, shops, and retailers looking forward to a very busy Christmas. We may not have a crystal ball, but we do have a good sense of what Australia’s Christmas shoppers are searching for online. So we started crunching the numbers to see what we could learn about how people are searching and shopping this year.
We discovered some interesting facts. First of all, 2011 is retail’s biggest year yet online--even bigger than the record-setting online shopping season driven by the strong Aussie dollar last year. Year over year, shopping-related searches are up 29%, making it more important than ever for businesses who want a piece of the action to get online.
However, it looks as though this year’s true Christmas miracle is mobile. While retail has posted impressive gains over last year’s season, the number of shopping queries coming from mobile devices increased 220% year on year. In fact, one quarter of all Christmas shopping-related Google searches this year now come from mobile devices.
This growth may be dramatic, but it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise. As we revealed in September, Australia has the second-highest smartphone penetration in the world. And by the end of this year, more than 50% of Australian adults will own a smartphone--just in time for Christmas. They’re using those smartphones to research gifts and contact local businesses. 1 in 5 sometimes even bypass the PC to make online purchases directly via their mobile phones.
So what does this mean for retail? To start with, it means that more people are looking for them, in more ways, and in more places: on the bus, from the train, even from the sofa while watching TV. At the same time, it means Australian businesses can’t afford to ignore mobile--without mobile-friendly websites, they’re invisible to the shoppers who’re trying to find them."

Saturday 19 November 2011

A Tweet from Selena Gomez generated 20,000 downloads of the Postcard on the Run mobile app



"Selena Gomez, the 19 year-old pop princess, actress and girlfriend of Justin Bieber, tweeted the above approbation for the iPhone application to her 8.3 million followers two weeks ago. Today, she informed the world that she too can play the celebrity investor and advisor part, and participated in Postcard on the Run’s $750,000 round of financing.
Postcard on the Run is a fresh, Los Angeles-based startup with iPhone and Android applications that lets you send real postcards to friends anywhere the world for $0.99 a piece. It has a few hooks including automatic address retrieval and “smell mail,” a feature that lets users add scratch-and-sniff scents to postcards.
The startup, which competes directly with Postagram and Apple’s similarly-purposed Cards app, now has Gomez, a powerful social media socialite — and possibly her even more influential boyfriend by association — in its corner. In addition to her Twitter legions, Gomez has nearly 25 million fans on Facebook. A Facebook update on today’s news nabbed 4,117 likes and 663 comments in four hours. Score one for Postcard on the Run.
The story goes that Gomez found the iPhone application on her own and loved it so much she tracked down founder Josh Brooks in September. The pair continued to chat and talks quickly turned to investment opportunities, Brooks told VentureBeat.
“She’s a fantastic partner for me,” Brooks said. Case in point: A recent tweet from Gomez netted the startup 20,000 downloads in 24 hours, he said."

Friday 18 November 2011

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 generated $775m in the first 5 days of sales

"Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 brought in $775 million in sales in its first five days on the market, gunning down the previous record.
It beat the record for five-day sales for movies and books too, Activision-Blizzard said today.
Activision-Blizzard's previous Call of Duty game held that last record. Call of Duty: Black Ops brought in $650 million in its first five days on sale, and Modern Warfare 2 brought in $550 million.
Gamers bought 6.5 million copies of Modern Warfare 3 the first day it was on sale, bringing in $400 million for Activision Blizzard. Black Ops brought in $360 million on its first day last year. Modern Warfare 2 brought in $310 million."

Thursday 17 November 2011

Transactions on Kenya's M-Pesa mobile money service exceed transactions made by Western Union globally

"Local transactions by Kenya’s mobile money service, M-Pesa currently exceed transactions made by Western Union globally, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reports. According to the IMF, “M-Pesa now processes more transactions domestically within Kenya than Western Union does globally, and provides mobile banking facilities to more than 70 per cent of the country’s adult population.”
Launched in March 2007 by Kenyan telecoms operator, Safaricom, the service which now has over 14 million users in Kenya is currently the world’s most successful mobile payments system."

Average Android app downloads per market



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Source:  Data from Research2Guidance, 16th November 2011

Wednesday 16 November 2011

Sting's iPad app cost over $1m to produce

"Earlier this week, we reported on the launch of Sting 25, an iPad app celebrating Sting’s solo career. But how much did it cost to make? More than one million dollars. This is according to the Wall Street Journal.
“Having recently released a 25th anniversary Sting box set, the singer’s label, Universal Music Group, and publisher, EMI, say they eagerly supported the app as a high-tech showcase for Sting’s catalog,” explains the newspaper.
“The music companies offered up the copyright clearances required, but didn’t chip in on the production budget. Those costs, in the low seven figures, were primarily covered by sponsors American Express and Chevrolet.”"

Tuesday 15 November 2011

The top 10 most popular purchases through mobile

"Jumptap’s study looked at the most popular mobile purchases. Here's the top 10:
1. Event tickets; daily deals: 38 percent of mobile device owners have made these purchases (tie)
3. Apparel or accessories: 36 percent
4. Travel; physical copies of books, video games or movies: 33 percent (tie)
6. Consumer electronics (TVs, etc., but excluding mobile phones): 32 percent
7. Flowers and gifts; toys: 30 percent (tie)
9. General services (photo printing, shipping services, etc.): 26 percent
10. Consumer packaged goods; sports and fitness: 25 percent (tie)"
Source:  Research from Jumptap and comScore, reported by AdWeek, 10th November 2011
Note - no country is stated, but I'm assuming that it's the US

Internet users & usage in Europe, September 2011



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Source:  Press release from comScore, 14th November 2011

The three new-for-fall US TV shows with the highest number of GetGlue checkins got recommissioned

"Good news for three out of three of the new-this-fall shows that did make our cut: Fox's "New Girl" and FX's "American Horror Story" have been officially renewed by their networks, and "Once Upon a Time" has gotten a renewal of sorts too -- a full-season order from ABC that bodes well for a full second season. As I've noted before, social-TV popularity and Nielsen ratings are likely to never have an exactly linear correlation, but it's becoming more and more obvious that the shows social-media users are most passionate about have pretty good odds of not only surviving but becoming part of the pop-cultural conversation."
Source:  Analysis of GetGlue checkins in AdAge, 15th November 2011
Note - as it says, there's no direct linear relationship between checkins (or buzz) & viewing, but the shows that people make an effort to check in for are likely to be the ones that people enjoy most or feel most passionate about.  

Monday 14 November 2011

118.5m people in the US & UK play social games at least once a week

"PopCap Games, maker of some of the world’s most popular video games, today unveiled the results of a survey updating a 2010 report targeting social gamers in the U.S. and U.K.  The survey found that 118.5 million people now play social games at least once a week, up 71%.  Among other results in the new survey, players are now significantly more likely to spend real-world money to buy content within social games, with 31 million players having purchased in-game currency, up 86%.
The full report, conducted by Information Solutions Group is available for download at 2011 PopCap Social Gaming Research.
The report examines play habits, attitudes and regional/demographic differences among social gamers, who represent the fastest-growing segment of the video game industry. The social game sector is anticipated to generate $5 billion by 2015 according to market research firm Parks and Associates.
The survey found that 30%, or 35 million people who now play social games are new to the category since February 2010, and that 17% percent of people who play social games regularly are new to gaming altogether, having never previously played a video game, representing 20 million new gaming consumers.  And while the average age of social gamers has gone down from 43 to 39, the average first time new social gamer is a 50+ year-old woman.
The report also uncovered regional differences in attitudes about cheating in social games, finding U.K. social gamers (11%) cheat at a higher rate than U.S. gamers (7%). Deeper insight into social gamers’ attitudes and habits surrounding cheating will be provided in a separate upcoming report.
Other key findings in the report include:
- 81 million people, or 68% of social gamers, play social games at least once a day
- 49 million people, or 41% of social gamers, play social games multiple times a day
- 33% of social gamers who played games on other platforms prior to playing social games reported spending less time playing games on other platforms
- Female social gamers outnumber men 55% to 45%
- The percentage of social gamers under 30 years old jumped from 19% to 30%
- 20% of all social gamers in the US are over 60, compared to only 7% in the U.K.
- Social gaming is a newer phenomenon in the U.K., where only 38% of social gamers have played for two years or more, versus 51% in the U.S."
Source:  Press release from PopCap, 14th November 2011
Full report here

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 sold 6.5m copies on the first day of sale

"Last week, the Call of Duty franchise yet again redefined our measly definition of “success” by selling 6.5 million copies of Modern Warfare 3 in one day, which translates into $400 million from just the U.S. and the U.K. That might be the single biggest currency-for-entertainment exchange in the history of pop culture. (By comparison, movie record-holder Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2 made a mere $91 million in its first 24 hours.) It’s the third straight record year for Activision Blizzard, which has essentially created a new early-November holiday by steadily releasing a new Call of Duty game every November. We talked to Activision CEO Bobby Kotick about the franchise’s mega-success, and the vision for the future."

Friday 11 November 2011

US Portable Game Software by Revenue 2009-2011



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Source:  Lurry Analytics, NPD Group and other estimates, reported on the Flurry blog, 9th November 2011
Note - I don't normally put projections in, but this contains more real data than projections

80% of American mobile users multitask in front of the TV

"While 80% of mobile users multitask in front of TV, 70% say they multitask once a week, and 49% on a daily basis. More than 60% percent check their phones at least “once or twice” during a show with 15% active on their devices the entire time.
– 38% say their mobile activity enhances the broadcast, while another 38% say it’s distracting.
– The top 5 categories that attract multitaskers are reality shows, news, comedy, sports and food.
– 94% of mobile multitaskers communicate while watching TV, while 60% are looking up content. Of the communicators, the most popular activities in order are: texting, talking, email, social networking and IM.
– 44% of the content that multitaskers consume is unrelated to what’s on TV compared to 38% that’s related. 36% look up information about a commercial they just saw. Most multitasking activity, overall, happens during commercial breaks."
Source:  Research from Razorfish & Yahoo, reported by LostRemote, 10th November 2011
The original article is here.  There's no mention of the methodology, but since all shows referred to are Aerican, I'm assuming the study took place in the US.

Thursday 10 November 2011

Most consumers in developed markets don't want to engage with brands in social media

"The race online has seen businesses across the world develop profiles on social networks, such as Facebook or YouTube, to speak to customers quickly and cheaply – but TNS’s research reveals that if  these efforts are not carefully targeted, they are wasted on half of them.
It found that 57 per cent of people*** in developed markets* do not want to engage with brands via social media – rising to 60 per cent in the US and 61 per cent in the UK. Instead, misguided digital strategies are generating mountains of digital waste, from friendless Facebook accounts to blogs no one reads.  This is being combined with ever-increasing content produced by consumers – the study shows 47 per cent of digital consumers now comment about brands online.
The result is huge volumes of noise, which is polluting the digital world and making it harder for brands to be heard – presenting a major challenge for businesses trying to enter into dialogue with consumers online.
“Winning and keeping customers is harder than ever,” said Matthew Froggatt, Chief Development Officer, TNS. He continued, “The online world undoubtedly presents massive opportunities for brands, however it is only through deploying precisely tailored marketing strategies that they will be able to realise this potential. Choosing the wrong channel, or simply adding to the cacophony of online noise, risks alienating potential customers and impacting business growth.”
TNS’s Digital Life study asked consumers around the world whether they actually want to engage with brands on social networking websites – either to find out more or to make a purchase.
Although 54 per cent of people*** admit social networks are a good place to learn about products, the research shows brands must harness digital more carefully if they are to use it to their advantage and deepen relationships with customers and prospects."
Source:  Data from the TNS Digital Life survey, reported in a press release, 10th November 2011
Access the full report through their interface here
Methodology:  
"*Developed markets: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States.
** Fast growth markets: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Columbia, Egypt, Estonia, Ghana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, Vietnam.
***This refers to Social Network Users only."

Smartphones account for 44% of all handsets in UAE, 55% in Saudi Arabia and 42% in Jordan

"Arab Advisors new surveys reveal that Smartphones constitute 43.7% of total cellular handsets in the UAE, 54.6% of total handsets in Saudi and 41.6% in Jordan.
A new Arab Advisors Group’s survey of cellular users in the UAE reveals insightful details on the smartphones adoption and usage patterns in the UAE. The survey also probed general cellular usage habits, smartphones awareness in addition to tablets availability among cellular users in the UAE. This survey comes on the heals of a similar survey in Jordan. Full results of a similar Saudi survey will be out in October 2011.
The Arab Advisors Group concluded a ground breaking survey of cellular users in the UAE probing smartphones adoption and usage. The survey revealed that Blackberry leads with 51% share of smartphones operating systems (calculated based on handsets’ brands). iOS (iPhone) ranked second while Symbian came in third. Smartphone users prefer the English language for their applications. Over 300 delegates will discuss and deliberate the ongoing trends in the regional smartphone ecosystem at Arab Advisors’ Smart Handheld Summit which will be held on December 5 & 6, 2011 in Dubai. Saudi Telecom Company (STC) is the Strategic Summit Partner. Qualcomm is sponsoring the summit which is also supported byAppsArabia, Microsoft, nPario, Teletimes, DVV, ITP CommsMea, MediaME and Telecom Watch."
Source:  Press release from the Arab Advisors Group, 19th October 2011

Wednesday 9 November 2011

A Call of Duty gamer plays for an average of 170 hours per year

"Even before the launch of Modern Warfare 3, the Call of Duty community is already one of the strongest there is. More than 30 million people have played online this year and 20 million players play each month. On average, the Call of Duty player plays 170 hours of the game per year. That’s as much time spent as watching the full series of the Sopranos and Lost, combined."
Source:  Data from Activision Blizzard, reported by VentureBeat, 8th November 2011

Chinese microblogging platform Weibo has 250m users

"Chinese internet company Sina (Nasdaq: SINA) has announced in its Q3 2011 earnings call that users on its Weibo microblogging platform exceeded 227 mln as of the end of September and recently reached 250 mln. Investment in marketing and R&D for Weibo more than doubled compared to Q3 2010, and CEO and president Charles Chao said costs will continue to rise over the next few quarters as Sina invests further in the platform.
As of the end of September, average daily posts rose from 75 mln to 86 mln, up 15% YoY. Overall traffic to the platform rose 23% YoY."
Source:  China News, Via Marbridge Daily, 9th November 2011

Tuesday 8 November 2011

The average number of links for UK newspapers shared on social sites per week

"Average Social Links per Week of UK Newspaper Web sites
1. http://www.dailymail.co.uk (2,908,779 links/week)
2. www.guardian.co.uk (2,587,258 links/week)
3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk (879,783 links/week)
4. http://www.independent.co.uk (617,148 links/week)
5. http://www.thesun.co.uk (195,311 links/week)
6. http://www.ft.com (83,382 links/week)
7. http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk (82,151 links/week)
8. http://www.mirror.co.uk (54,881 links/week)
9. http://www.heraldscotland.com (13,063 links/week)
10. http://www.express.co.uk (9,600 links/week)
11. http://www.dailystar.co.uk (702 links/week)
12. http://www.thetimes.co.uk (256 links/week)"
Source:  Research by Searchmetrics, carried out over 10 weeks, reported by The Drum, 8th November 2011

Digital sales account for 26% of all UK album sales

"Sales of digital albums have already smashed the 2010 record, selling 21.3 million copies, two months ahead of the year end, new Official Charts Company data released by BPI reveals today.
The news follows the success of Coldplay’s hotly anticipated new album, Mylo Xyloto, which sold more than 80,000 digital copies in week one, breaking the record for the highest number of digital copies to be sold in a first week of release – and becoming the latest album to pass 100,000 downloads. Digital accounted for 40% of the band’s first week album sales.
Digital albums now represent 26.2% share of total album sales, up from 17.5% during 2010, according to the Official Charts Company data. This year, the Top 10 biggest digital albums have all sold more than 100,000 digital copies, including albums by Lady Gaga, Jessie J and Ed Sheeran."
Source:  Press release from BPI, 7th November 2011

Apple generates 52% of all handset profits despite only selling 4.2% of all handsets

"With the iPhone, Apple is doing to the smartphone business what it has done to the PC business with the Mac: Generating a disproportionate share of profits relative to revenue.
In its third quarter, Apple captured more than half of the handset industry’s overall operating profits — 52 percent, according to Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley. And it managed it with only a 4.2 percent global handset unit market share."
Source:  AllThingsD, 4th November 2011
Note - Oppenheimer say that it's 65%

The demographics of American gamers



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Also this killer stat:
"Women age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (37%) than boys age 17 or younger (13%)"
Source:  Entertainment Software Association, Essential Facts about the Computer and Video Games Industry 2011

Internet Explorer has less than 50% share of all web browsing

"Internet Explorer can no longer claim more than half of the web’s traffic, as of October, ending more than a decade of the default Microsoft browser’s reign.
Safari’s hold on 62.17% of mobile traffic has reduced IE’s overall share of web browsing, despite still claiming 52.63% of desktop traffic, according to Netmarketshare.com.
The Microsoft browser’s diminishing share (49.6%) reflects its near absence from the realms of mobile and tablet, which now make up 6% of web traffic. However, chances are, you gave up on IE long enough ago that this milestone makes you more curious as to who actually still uses the browser.
As of October, Firefox is the second most popular web browser, accounting for 21.20% of traffic, followed by Google Chrome and Safari, which account for 16.60% and 8.72% respectively.
Chrome, which recently celebrated its third birthday, experienced the most expansion in October, increasing its share of the desktop market 1.42%.
Safari, the default browser in Apple’s iPhone and iPad, continues to increase its dominance over the mobile web, gaining 6.58% of the market. Safari’s share is increasing faster than the iPhone’s, probably due to how much mobile traffic is now driven by iPads."

Monday 7 November 2011

Zynga has 58m active daily users in 175 countries

"The company updated its stats, noting it has 230 million monthly active users, down from 232 million when it first file for an IPO in June. It has 58 million daily active users in 175 countries. Those users play 2 billion minutes a day and engage in 4 billion in-game user-to-user connections a day.
Zynga said that, according to AppData, its games are played by more daily active players than the next 14 social game developers combined. Zynga said it has four of the top five social games on Facebook, based on daily active users."
Source:  Data revealed by Zynga, and reported by VentureBeat, 4th November 2011

The American X Factor gets an average of 94,000 comments in social media per episode

"Fox's "The X Factor" is No. 1 among new series, with an average of 94,000 social comments per episode as recorded by Bluefin. It hasn't been the "American Idol"-killer that Simon Cowell obviously hoped it would be, but it's turned out to be a very solid hit for Fox. In fact, it's helping boost other shows on the network."
Source:  Data from Bluefin, reported by AdAge, 4th November 2011
Note - in the article 5 shows are compared, but frustratingly there's no direct comparison between X Factor and American Idol

Friday 4 November 2011

2/3 of college students would rather have an internet connection than a car



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Source:  Taken from Cisco's World Technology Report, September 2011
Press release here
Methodology - 1,400 college students aged 18-23 & 1400 young professionals under 30.
The survey was translated into local languages and fielded in 14 countries to gain approximately
100 completes for each subgroup in each country
Countries: United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, Italy,
Russia, India, China, Japan, Australia

Over 2/3 of Mylo Xyloto's US first week sales were downloads

"Coldplay has already pulled impressive, first-week album sales stats. But now, it looks like a monstrously large percentage of those sales were in the form of digital albums, particularly in the US.  We just received a complete first-week breakdown on Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto, and it shows that out of 447,411 total albums sold, more than 300,000 were digital.  Or, more precisely, 302,183, or 67.5% of total, according to first-week album sales tallied by Nielsen Soundscan."
Source:  Digital Music News, 3rd November 2011

Smartphone penetration in the US by age



Click to enlarge

Source:  Data from Nielsen reported in NielsenWire, 3rd November 2011
Follow the link for more data in OS shares

Social media use by Fortune 500 companies - 62% use Twitter, 58% Facebook, and 23% have a blog

"A recent study from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth has found the adoption of social media usage among Fortune 500 companies has levelled off. Across multiple industries, usage of Twitter, Facebook and blogs in 2011 is level with or below that of 2010.
In 2010, 23 percent of Fortune 500 companies had a blog. In 2011, that figured remained unchanged at 23 percent. In 2010, 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies have a Twitter account. In 2011, 62 percent have an account. In 2010, 56 percent of Fortune 500 companies had a Facebook account. In 2011, 58 percent have an account."
Source:  Data from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, reported by Adrants, 2nd November 2011

Groupon's IPO values the company at $12.65bn

"Groupon raised $700m in its highly anticipated initial public offering on Thursday night, overcoming a host of investor concerns to break through in a difficult market for US IPOs.
The pricing at $20 a share valued the group at $12.65bn. The valuation was above its range of $10bn-$11bn, but below the valuation it had been seeking earlier this year of closer to $20bn."

Wednesday 2 November 2011

Chinese handset manufacturer ZTE is now the 4th largest globally, by volume

"According to new global handset market figures released yesterday by market research firm IDC, Chinese telecom equipment and terminal manufacturer ZTE had Q3 2011 shipments of 19.1 mln handsets, surpassing Apple to gain a firm fourth-place position with 4.9% of the global market. Nokia and Samsung maintained the first- and second-place positions; LG, in third place, had a 5.4% share of the market. ZTE said that it plans to become one of the world's top three handset makers by shipments over the next three to five years."
Source;  Data from IDC, reported by Beijing News, via Marbridge Daily, 2nd November 2011

Angry Birds has been downloaded 500m times



"Rovio today announced 500 million total downloads of Angry Birds games across various platforms. This remarkable milestone makes Angry Birds one of the most downloaded games in the history of gaming, with no signs of slowing down.
Angry Birds Fans around the world have so far played a total of 200,000 years of Angry Birds, with 300 million minutes of playing time daily. Moreover, more than 266 billion levels of Angry Birds have been played, with 400 billion birds launched into action, and over 44 billion Stars collected in the process."
Source:  Press release from Rovio, 2nd November 2011

The average UK home broadband users downloads 17GB of data each month

"The average home broadband user downloads 17 gigabytes (GB) of data each month, equivalent to streaming 12 hours of high-definition content from the BBC's iPlayer, as data use has increased sevenfold over the past five years, says a new report.
At the same time 97% of UK premises – and 66% of the country – can get a voice signal outdoors from each of the mobile networks O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone, while 73% of premises and 13% of the country can access 3G data signals, according to research by the communications watchdog Ofcom."
Source:  Data from Ofcom, reported by The Guardian, 1st November 2011
Press release here
Full report here

120m smartphones were shipped in Q3 2011, up 49% Y-o-Y

"Canalys today released its Q3 2011 country-level smart phone shipment estimates to clients, revealing that HTC has taken the top spot in the US market. At the same time, a particularly strong performance from Samsung saw it become the world’s number one smart phone vendor. Overall, the worldwide market grew substantially: 49% year-on-year to 120.4 million units.
With phenomenal year-on-year and sequential growth of 252% and 60% respectively, Samsung shipped 27.3 million smart phones under its own brand to capture a 23% share, becoming the number one vendor in APAC, Western Europe and Latin America, ahead of Nokia, Apple and RIM respectively. With well-regarded products, such as the Galaxy S II, and significant marketing campaigns, the vendor registered the second highest quarterly shipment total in the market’s history, behind only Nokia’s Q4 2010 performance. In addition, Samsung shipped an estimated 500,000 units worldwide under the Google and T-Mobile brands.
In the United States, the world’s largest smart phone market, HTC shone in Q3 2011, edging out Apple and Samsung to become the leading vendor. HTC shipped 5.7 million smart phones in the US under its own brand, giving it almost a quarter of the market, as well as an estimated 70,000 units under the T-Mobile brand. ‘However you count it, HTC has become a deserved leader in the US smart phone market,’ said Palo Alto-based Canalys Vice President and Principal Analyst, Chris Jones. ‘This is an awesome achievement for HTC, which has built a premium brand in a highly competitive market in just a few short years. It now has a strong range of 4G Android products, with devices ranged by each of the major carriers, and offers some of the most compelling and differentiated products found on the platform today.’"
Source:  Press release from Canalys, 31st October 2011

44% of people in the UK own a smartphone

"Almost half of the UK population now owns a smartphone, and Google's OS, Android, is leading the race.
According to research from market watcher Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, smartphone sales are on the rise. App-friendly handsets now make up 69.1 per cent of all mobile phone purchases, it said. And 43.8 per cent of Britons own one.
Google's Android OS can be found under the hood of half those handsets, with RIM's BlackBerry OS taking 22.5 per cent and Apple's iOS 18.5 per cent.
The figures are somewhat skewed, though, as data is based on a period that ended two days prior to Apple's iPhone 4S launch, which has undoubtedly boosted the company's position after it shipped record amounts of the latest iPhone.
Either way, the influx of Android has certainly made it the most adopted platform, with its share of the UK market rising from 29 per cent to 49.9 per cent from the same period in 2010.
HTC took the lead in Q3, accounting for 45 per cent of Android shipments, with Samsung taking a 38 per cent share.
Other manufacturers are lagging behind. Sony Ericsson dropped to 8.5 per cent over the three months to October, down from 25.2 per cent."
Source:  Data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, reported by Reg Hardware, 1st November 2011

Tuesday 1 November 2011

Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto is the first album to sell more than 80,000 digital copies a week in the UK

"Coldplay’s latest album, 'Mylo Xyloto', smashed a new digital record in landing the Number 1 spot in yesterday’s Official Albums Chart, the Official Charts Company can confirm today.
The new studio album scored the biggest one week digital albums tally of all time in the UK – becoming the first album to top 80,000 downloads in a week as it did so. 'Mylo Xyloto' tallied just over 83,000 digital sales last week, on the way to totalling 208,000 copies overall.
The biggest previous weekly digital tally by any album was 79,800, which was achieved by Take That’s 'Progress' in its opening week, in November last year. The only other artist albums to total more than 50,000 downloads in a week are Adele’s '21' which sold 76,000 downloads in its debut week in January this year, along with Lady Gaga’s 'Born This Way', which sold 57,000."

WPP agencies spend $1.5bn a year with Google

"Sorrell says WPP agencies now spend $1.5 billion (£930 million) a year with Google globally, roughly double what they spend with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
Google's UK revenues - a good paradigm for digital advertising as a whole given the internet search giant's dominance - surged 21% in the last three months. Contrast that with Britain's TV ad market where growth has been anaemic since the spring and is likely to end the year close to flat.
France's Publicis Groupe, owner of agencies such as Saatchi & Saatchi and Starcom MediaVest in the UK, says that globally, 56% of its revenues from financial services clients are now spent on digital media. Only 44% goes to what it calls "analogue" media.
Other clients remain more committed to traditional media such as TV, press, radio and outdoor because of its effectiveness at brand-building. Consumer goods firms only spend 20% on digital and 80% on analogue.
For now, the big marketing and communications holding groups are coping. "What you lose on the TV roundabout, you gain on the swings with digital," says Sorrell."
Source:  The Evening Standard, 31st October 2011