Experian Hitwise Logo

• Products & Services
• Press Centre
  • Press Releases
  • Events
  • Newsletter
  • Broadcasts
  • Research Analysts
  • In the News
• Resources
  • Data Centre
  • Weblogs
  • Reports & Webinars
  • Case Studies
• About Us
  • Management Team
  • Careers
  • How we do it
• Contact Us
  • Office Locations

• You are here
• Home
• Press Centre
• Press Releases
• Australians Online - New Insights into our Social Behaviour

Australians Online – New Insights into our Social Behaviour

We dump Ford for Hyundai, Are Credit Wary, Check Lifeline a lot,
Bet More on Sport during World Cup, Cook at Home & Ask Google “How to Kiss”

Sydney, Australia - June 25, 2010 – An Experian Hitwise analysis of Australian web searches during the past year provides some interesting, amusing and random insights into Australian social habits relevant for marketers and commentators alike.

The Experian Hitwise analysis, called Australians Online in 2010, was released to coincide with the annual Experian Hitwise Awards, which rewards the most popular websites searched for by Australian consumers in the past year.

“Australian web searches are a reflection on the interests and, in some instances the psyche, of Australian consumers and have become a great tool to help marketers understand their audience,” said Alan Long, Research Director, Experian Hitwise.

Below, Alan Long, Research Director, Experian Hitwise, identifies some of the key social insights from Experian’s Annual Online analysis. The winners of the Experian Hitwise Awards are outlined at the bottom of this release.

Experian Hitwise Insights:

Automotive

• Australia no longer a nation of just Ford and Holden or Toyota; Hyundai is now 3rd most visited Auto manufacturer (May 2010).
• On the back of the World Cup Hyundai is the second most searched car brand in Australia (4 weeks ending 12 June 2010).
• Online classified ads are dominated by digital only brands; the top two websites [carsales.com.au and tradingpost.com.au] capture 39.2% of all visits. (May 2010).

Aviation

• Low costs international airlines are taking a bigger share of the search in the market; Tiger Airways is up 21.5% and Air Asia up 35.8% this year. (May 2010 compared to January 2010).
• Virgin is now the most searched for airline brand by Australians.

Business and Finance

• Australians are now more wary of increasing credit. Queries for home loans are down 13.8% since the end of March and credit card searches are down 46.1%.
• Building Societies website visitation is increasing - up 5.2% at expense of credit unions (down 12.5%) and Big 4 Banks (down 2.6%) in past year. (Share of visits comparing week ending 12 June 2010 to week ending 13 June 2009).

Community

• Visits to Community sites have decreased 23.1% in the past year (May 2010 vs. May 2009).
• Conversely, Lifeline Australia (+57.3%), Salvation Army (+41.8%) and Oxfam Shop (+31.7%) are among the fastest moving community organisations in past year (based on share of visits May 2010 vs. May 2009).

Computer and Internet

• Social networking and forums usage increased 36.1% in the past year and overtook search engines as the most visited industry by Australian Internet users in March 2010.
• Facebook dominates the social networking and forums industry with 56.4% of all visits in May 2010.
• Portal frontpages making a comeback with a Year on Year share of visits increase of 15.2% (May 2010 vs. May 2009).
• Search engines continue to be our confidante; we ask them things we often wouldn’t ask our best friends – our wants, our needs and our fears. How to kiss, why is the sky blue and more. It’s good to see that psychologists and linguists have a little joke going. Over the last three months our biggest fear searched for is the fear of long words - does anyone know what this is called? Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia - 35 characters long.

Education

• Controversial Government My School initiative ranking peaked at No.9 at its launch in January 2010, but now sits at 162 in Education rankings.
• Wikipedia continues to prove the business model of crowdsourcing, holding 29.0% of all visits to Education Reference websites in May 2010.

Entertainment

• YouTube holds 17.8% of all visits to Entertainment websites in May 2010.
• Social networks are having impact in other industries driving three key photography sites – Twitpic, TweetPhoto and YFrog - into the top 15 in a short period of time.

Food and Beverage

• Masterchef is the number two Food and Beverage website, tracking at the same level of share that series 1 enjoyed last June.
• Masterchef’s timing was serendipitous, with interest in recipes and home entertainment on the rise out the back of the Global Financial Crisis. This trend towards cooking and recipes has continued with the search trends around recipes increasing 43.6% in the past 12 months.

Gambling

• Sports betting is getting a strong lift from the World Cup increasing share 34% in the past two weeks (ending June 19), but nothing compared to what a Lotto jackpot can do for share increasing 84.2% in the week ending June 19 as Tuesday Lotto offered a $30 million first prize.
• As a comparison, the share of visits to Sports betting is 29% higher than in AFL Grand Final week, 39.6% higher than Rugby grand Final week, but still 33.1% lower than the week of the Melbourne Cup.

Sports

• The World Cup has seen increased visits to sports websites – the soccer industry increased 68.9% in the past two weeks and overtaken AFL Football as the most visited football code by Australian users.

If you would like further insight into the statistics above we are happy to facilitate these with Experian Hitwise Research Director Alan Long.

Experian Hitwise last night identified the Australian websites that achieved the highest traffic volume in 18 categories, from Automotive to Travel (see list below).
 
“We congratulate the Experian Hitwise top Australian Web Site winners. We head into 2011 as one of the most competitive online markets in our history it is great to see some big Australian brands holding their own among global leaders such as Facebook, Google and You Tube” said Michael Walmsley, General Manager Experian CheetahMail and Hitwise.

Key winners included:

Category	Domain
Automotive	www.carsales.com.au
Aviation	www.qantas.com.au
Business and Finance	www.netbank.commbank.com.au
Community	www.worldvision.com.au
Computers and Internet	www.google.com.au
Education	www.bom.gov.au
Entertainment	www.youtube.com
Food and Beverage	www.taste.com.au
Gambling	www.tab.com.au/racing
Government	www.bom.gov.au
Health and Medical	www.medicareaustralia.gov.au
Lifestyle	www.rsvp.com.au
Music	music.ninemsn.com.au
News and Media	www.bom.gov.au
Shopping and Classifieds	www.ebay.com.au
Sports	www.afl.com.au
Television	www.abc.net.au
Travel	maps.google.com.au

For further detail and a full list of winners can be found at  www.hitwise.com.au/awards.

For more information please contact:

Cathy Fleetwood
(02) 9213 2312
cfleetwood@n2n.com.au

Callum Bruford
(02) 9213 2333
cbruford@n2n.com.au

About Experian Hitwise

Experian Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Experian Hitwise gives marketers a competitive advantage by providing daily insights on how 25 million Internet users around the world interact with more than 1 million websites. This external view helps companies grow and protect their businesses by identifying threats and opportunities as they develop. Experian Hitwise has more than 1,500 clients across numerous sectors, including financial services, media, travel and retail.

Experian Hitwise (FTS:EXPN), www.experianplc.com, operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada and Brazil. More information about Experian Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.au.
 
For up-to-date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Research Blog at www.ilovedata.com and Hitwise Data Centre at www.hitwise.com/au/resources/data-centre.

About Experian

Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to clients in more than 65 countries. The company helps businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision making. Experian also helps individuals to check their credit report and credit score, and protect against identity theft.

Experian plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Total revenue for the year ended 31 March 2009 was $3.9 billion. Experian employs approximately 15,000 people in 40 countries and has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; Costa Mesa, California; and São Paulo, Brazil.  

For more information, visit http://www.experianplc.com.