UKOM: Digital Market Overview - Dec 2018

Using UKOM approved comScore data, the DMO shares insights into what the UK Population is doing online by providing a top-line snapshot of audience behaviour each quarter. UKOM has approved comScore’s multi-platform data which reports audience behaviour across desktop, tablets and smartphones. Key insights for December include:

• Smartphones now account for 65% of time online, up from 60% a year ago.

• Females spend the greatest share of time on mobile devices (smartphone and tablet) at 84% compared to only 71% for males.

• The ‘mobile only’ audience has grown by 7% points over the last year, up from 25% to 32% of the UK online adult population. 

• Platform share differs greatly by category. For example, smartphones account for over 85% share of time for instant messenger, coupons, maps, fitness trackers, books, social media, dating and online gaming categories. PCs and laptops account for over 50% of time spent on Education, Family and Automotive sites.

• Compared to September 2018, of the top 10 sites by unique visitors, Amazon (+3%) and Sky (+4%) saw the greatest percentage uplift in audience. Among the top 10 ‘time spent’ properties, Spotify (+35%), Amazon (+32%) and Netflix (+17%) saw the greatest percentage uplift in minutes.

• Amazon Alexa (+81%) and TikTok (+55%) witnessed the largest % UV growth out of the top 100 mobile apps since September 2018. Amazon Alexa had 2.7m app visitors in December whilst TikTok’s app audience has grown steadily over the last six months to 2.3m.

• Since September, Spotify is the clear leader in terms of ‘additional mobile app audience’ as it added 2.5million visitors, outperforming WhatsApp and Amazon Mobile, the 2nd highest performers, who both grew unique visitors by 1.6 million.

• Unsurprisingly 9 of the top 10 retailers all witnessed audience gains between September and December, the exception being Apple.  Argos (now owned by Sainsbury's) added over 5 million unique visitors while Boots and John Lewis both grew by more than 3 million. In % terms, out of the top 200 online retail sites, those selling gifts experiences the biggest uplifts with Thorntons, Prezzybox, Menkind, HotelChocolat, The Perfume Shop and Findmeagift among the top growth sites.

• Finally, whilst the online grocery retailers all saw audience uplifts over the festive period, when looking at year-on-year growth, the budget supermarkets Aldi (+17%) and Morrisons (+16%) are witnessing the highest growth.