SHOPPING? CHECK. BREAKING NEWS? CHECK. AUSSIES GET DIGITAL IN THE LEAD UP TO CHRISTMAS

News.com.au takes top spot in the online news categoryDouble digit growth for many of Australia’s major online retail stores

SYDNEY: December 11, 2014 – News.com.au has taken the top spot in the online current events & global news category and online retail notably increased eyeballs or audiences in the lead up to Christmas, according to Nielsen, a leading global provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy.

NEWS.COM.AU TAKES TOP SPOT Latest results from Nielsen Online Ratings reveal News.com.au attracted a unique audience of 3.69 million to their site during November 2014, overtaking SMH.com.au which has held the top spot for the past three consecutive months.

Other notable shifts in the current events & global news category are The Age, jumping up the ranks from eighth to sixth position with a unique audience of 2.35 million and The Guardian, coming off an all-time high in October 2014 saw a normalisation of unique audience with 1.90 million in November 2014.

Yahoo!7 reported the biggest gain of the top ten mastheads in the current events & global news category for time spent on their site, up 27% to 33 minutes compared to the prior month, followed by The Guardian up 12% to 40 minutes and 9NEWS Websites up 11% to 49 minutes. News.com.au retained the top spot in the time spent metric for November 2014, followed by The Age, (see table below.)

DOUBLE DIGIT GROWTH FOR ONLINE AUSSIE RETAILERS Nielsen revealed double digit growth for many major online retailers in November 2014 compared to the prior month as the lead up to Christmas saw consumers jump online for the latest online deals, range of choices and to shortcut the Christmas checkout queue.

Among retailers with digital audiences of more than a million people per month, Kmart Australia led the growth story with an additional 447,000 people during November 2014 (+44%), followed by Kogan which gained an incremental 308,000 people (+26%) and JB Hi-Fi with an additional 308,000 (+21%) compared to the prior month. Additional retailers with an online store that showed significant audience growth compared to the same time period last year include Bing Lee (+102%), Rivers (+53%) and ToysRus (+49%). 

Convenience is key at this time of year says Monique Perry, Head of Nielsen’s Media Industry Group. “People are so time poor and convenience means consumers can do their shopping when they want, where they want and in an efficient way – this need is unquestionably met by the combination of mobile connected devices and increasing confidence as a result of even better online retail experiences.”

Separately, Nielsen confirmed that MSN.com’s Australian homepage appeared for the first time in the Hybrid measurement solution since the launch. The MSN.com homepage recorded a total unique audience of 2.60M people for November 2014.

TABLE 1. TOP SITES RANKED BY UNIQUE AUDIENCE – CURRENT EVENTS & GLOBAL NEWS 

Source: Nielsen Online Ratings, Hybrid data November, 2014.

NOTE: The brand-level audience for BBC, which ranked tenth in Current Events & Global News during October 2014, is impacted by a Nielsen classification review and is temporarily omitted from the table above. The BBC parent-level audience is unaffected and was published as 2.30 million in November 2014. 

ABOUT NIELSENNielsen Holdings N.V. (NYSE: NLSN) is a global information and measurement company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television, and other media measurement, online intelligence, mobile measurement, trade shows, and related properties. Nielsen has a presence in approximately 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA, and Diemen, the Netherlands. For more information, visit www.nielsen.com.

Press Contact:Jackie Helliker, 0403 074 864, jackie.helliker@nielsen.com