MSN and Yahoo! Capture Top Rankings In Survey

NIELSEN//NETRATINGS ANNOUNCES FIRST-EVER MULTI-COUNTRY
INTERNET AUDIENCE MEASUREMENT RESULTS

Reveals MSN and Yahoo! Capture Top Rankings in Five Countries
High Internet Usage Registered in Australia, New Zealand in Time Spent Per Month

Auckland – 11 May 2000 – Nielsen//NetRatings, the fastest growing Internet audience measurement service in the industry from ACNielsen eRatings.com, Nielsen Media Research and NetRatings, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTRT), today reported its first-ever international Internet audience information and usage for five countries: New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

“This is a huge step forward since we launched the international service in late 1999. In that brief time, Nielsen//NetRatings has formed a global panel of 95,000 users and signed on 55 global clients,” said Brian Milnes, Managing Director Australasia, ACNielsen eRatings.com. “We are now in a position to provide real-time quality data ahead of anyone else in the industry in these key countries around the world.”

International Rankings

Global Internet domains figure prominently in international surfing activity. MSN was the top web site by domain in the New Zealand, UK and Australia, and was second only to Yahoo! in Singapore and Ireland (see Table 1). In the first look at non-U.S. usage of the Internet among the five countries reported, New Zealand leads in Internet usage with nearly eight hours per person of monthly usage in March (see Table 2), though the U.S. still maintains its top spot in monthly usage with more than nine hours in March.

Keryy Hawkins, Director of Sales for ACNielsen eRatings.com New Zealand said: “Both MSN and Yahoo! have risen to the top in the New Zealand, U.K., Ireland, Singapore and Australia markets by carefully developing relationships and partnerships with local content providers in these markets, then adding their value-added applications, such as free email, online communities and searching capabilities to provide a well-rounded local package.”
Table 1. Nielsen//NetRatings Top 5 Sites by Domain*, March 2000
AUSTRALIA, March 2000
Domain Unique Audience Time Per Person (hrs:min:sec)
msn.com 1,337,519 0:40:21
Yahoo.com 1,257,409 0:45:32
Passport.com 909,776 0:13:25
Microsoft.com 810,484 0:09:36
Geocities.com 803,279 0:10:08

IRELAND, March 2000
Domain Unique Audience Time Per Person (hrs:min:sec)
Yahoo.com 188,972 0:29:44
msn.com 158,491 0:28:03
Eircom.net 105,534 0:15:24
Passport.com 98,482 0:09:01
Altavista.com 92,310 0:07:30

SINGAPORE, March 2000
Domain Unique Audience Time Per Person (hrs:min:sec)
Yahoo.com 197,633 0:30:28
msn.com 157,517 0:33:52
Pacfusion.com 145,387 0:16:49
Passport.com 126,585 0:11:57
Geocities.com 109,949 0:08:10

NEW ZEALAND, March 2000
Domain Unique Audience Time Per Person (hrs:min:sec)
msn.com 256,571 0:37:18
Xtra.co.nz 219,289 0:13:53
Yahoo.com 193,729 0:57:34
Microsoft.com 147,196 0:10:35
Xtrasite.co.nz 139,892 0:05:44

UNITED KINGDOM, March 2000
Domain Unique Audience Time Per Person (hrs:min:sec)
msn.com 2,587,581 0:21:27
Yahoo.com 2,287,626 0:30:18
Microsoft.com 1,748,464 0:07:19
Yahoo.co.uk 1,681,313 0:16:21
Excite.co.uk 1,427,965 0:07:33
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, March 2000
* Note: A domain is a consolidation of multiple URLs

“Local partnerships are key for U.S.-based portals in establishing an Internet presence in these countries. In the U.K., MSN leverages a relationship with The Evening Standard to provide deep and rich local news and information. In Australia, Microsoft forged a relationship with Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL) to offer the high quality local news and information in a co-branded site, Ninemsn. Yahoo! tackles the global markets using its model of aggregating the best and brightest local information and adding its easy-to-navigate interface and personalization tools to create a strong local presence,” said Milnes.

“The primary difference between the Yahoo! and MSN approach is that Yahoo! essentially provides a standard look and feel across all its global sites, thus leveraging the top Web brand, while MSN attempts to give each of its local outposts more of an individual flavor,” said Milnes.

International Internet Usage
In the first look at non-U.S. usage of the Internet among the five countries reported, New Zealand leads in Internet usage with nearly eight hours of monthly usage in March (see Table 2).
“This is likely due to New Zealand’s recent efforts to institute decentralization of phone services, which leads to competition, driving phone prices down and overall usage up,” said Milnes.
The U.S., however, still maintains its top spot in monthly usage with more than nine hours in March.
“Of the global trends we’re seeing, telecom reform is one of the largest factors driving Internet usage. In many countries, the price of basic telecom access in addition to the cost of Internet access keep Internet usage low,” said Milnes.
“Even with the proliferation of free ISPs in the U.K., such as Virgin Net, overall home usage is still low compared to the U.S. as well as other nations under measure. Having to pay for local phone charges discourages very heavy usage,” said Milnes. “In the U.S., for example, where competition has driven down the price of local and long distance service, the average home Internet user spends more time online and has more sessions per month.”
Table 2. Nielsen//NetRatings Average Internet Usage for Six Countries, March 2000
United States Australia Ireland New Zealand Singapore United Kingdom
Number of Sessions per Month 19 14 9 16 12 12
Number of Unique Sites Visited 10 17 18 21 22 18
Page Views per Month 670 515 352 462 468 414
Page Views per Surfing Session 35 38 37 29 38 35
Time Spent per Month 9:42:57 7:50:09 4:23:21 7:57:16 6:18:07 5:17:29
Time Spent During Surfing Session 30: 42 0:34:36 0:27:48 29:46 30:46 27:07
Duration of a Page Viewed 0:00:53 0:00:55 0:00:45 0:01:02 0:00:49 0:00:46
Active Internet Universe (actually surfed) 81.6 million 3.0 million 328,000 565,000 404,000 7.6 million
Current Internet Universe Estimate (those who had access, but did not necessarily go online) 129.7 million 6.0 million 693,000 1.2 million 1.7 million 17.0 million
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, March 2000
International Demographics
Internet audiences outside the U.S. are still predominantly male. While the Internet audience in the U.S. during March was evenly split between males and females, audiences in the five countries measured during March ranged from as much as 60 percent male in Singapore and 61 percent male in the UK to 55 percent male in New Zealand.
The 35-49 year-old age bracket was the most active for each country, composing nearly 30 percent of the audience in each country. The same age bracket is also the most active for at-home users of the Internet in the U.S.
About Nielsen//NetRatings
Through strategic partnerships between NetRatings, Nielsen Media Research and ACNielsen, the Nielsen//NetRatings audience measurement service collects real-time data from more than 95,000 Internet users around the world. The U.S. panel sample currently consists of 43,000 at-home users and 8,000 at-work users. International panels are under development with over 45,000 at-home users currently being measured. These panels collectively represent the largest media research sample of Internet users in the industry.

Nielsen//NetRatings uses unique technology capable of measuring both Internet use and advertising to provide the most timely, accurate and comprehensive Internet usage data and advertising information in the global marketplace. Nielsen//NetRatings tracks the entire spectrum of Internet user behavior, leveraging proprietary data-collection technology from NetRatings, Nielsen Media Research's 50 years of expertise in research and audience measurement, and ACNielsen’s international leadership in offering market research information covering more than 100 countries. For more information, please visit www.nielsen-netratings.com.

About ACNielsen eRatings.com
ACNielsen eRatings.com is a venture between ACNielsen (NYSE: ART) and NetRatings Inc. (NASDAQ: NTRT). ACNielsen is the world's leading market research firm, offering measurement and analysis of marketplace dynamics, consumer attitudes and behavior, and new and traditional media in more than 100 countries, and NetRatings is the leading provider of Internet audience measurement technology and analysis. Through the Nielsen//NetRatings service, ACNielsen eRatings.com is creating the first global service for tracking audiences, advertising and user activity on the Internet in more than 30 countries worldwide.

About NetRatings, Inc.
NetRatings (Nasdaq: NTRT) provides Internet audience measurement and analysis services that enable its customers to make informed decisions regarding their Internet strategies. NetRatings delivers accurate and timely information collected from a representative sample of Internet users and augments it with detailed, flexible reporting and in-depth analyses.

###

© Scoop Media