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Nielsen//NetRatings finds Kiwi love affair with Net -
Global Internet Domains Continue to Dominate New Zealand Activity
AUCKLAND, 12 June 2000: It’s official: Kiwis surf more often, visit more sites, and spend longer online than people from
any other country measured by ACNielsen eRatings.com, except of course for the United States. That finding comes as
ACNielsen eRatings.com readies the release of its first quarter of data on New Zealand at-home Internet usage.
In April, New Zealanders surfing at home went online for an average of 15 sessions per month. They visited 21 unique
sites and spent an average total of 7hrs 25min online (see table below).
Country NZ IRE AU SG UK US
Number of Sessions Per Month 15 9 12 13 11 19
Number of Unique Sites Visited 21 17 15 20 17 11
Time Spent per Month 07:25:13 04:29:49 07:10:47 06:52:51 05:10:32 09:26:23
Data Source: April 2000 Nielsen//NetRatings at-home panel
The comparisons are made possible by ACNielsen eRatings.com’s global panel methodology, which uses a consistent approach
to enumeration, recruitment and data collection, allowing for a uniformly high standard of global reporting on a global
medium.
Initial revelations
Nielsen//NetRatings findings show that in the borderless Internet, big names dominate, following the 90:10 Internet rule
that ninety percent of traffic flows through ten percent of sites.
“In business-to-consumer e-commerce, we’re seeing the emergence of brand equity and client relationship as key success
factors. That very much mirrors the rest of the business world, but the very fluid business environment in the
cyberspace is making it a very different survival game,” said Brian Milnes, managing director Pacific, ACNielsen
eRatings.com.
According to Milnes, brand matters a lot. While established brands can still succeed with a delayed web strategy,
startups are well-advised to build ‘brandwidth’ – and fast.
April data from Nielsen//NetRatings showed that global Internet domains MSN and Yahoo! continued to figure prominently
in surfing activity. Milnes noted that in New Zealand, local telecom companies and major Internet Service Providers are
showing their ability to grab traffic on the Web. For example, Xtra, a service of Telecom New Zealand, takes advantage
of its power in the marketplace to be the second largest domain in that country and a leading news and information
resource.
NEW ZEALAND, April 2000
Domain Unique Audience Time Per Person (hrs:min:sec)
msn.com 287,855 0:33:40
Xtra.co.nz 215,336 0:09:31
Yahoo.com 211,570 1:01:08
Microsoft.com 158,724 0:08:33
Passport.com 147,136 0:12:00
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, April 2000
On the other hand, product matters less than building and maintaining customer relationships, as evident from the
traditional shopping spikes around Mothers’ Day and Valentine’s Day.
However, Milnes said judging success on the Internet was difficult, citing the proliferation of new business models,
such as reverse auctions and ‘free’ ISPs, where the impact on other channels defied the usual business metrics.
“While some conventional wisdom will still reigns in online business, although with quite different ramifications, we
also foresee the evolution of some new rules in this brave new world,” he said. “Clients of Nielsen//NetRatings will be
the first to detect any new rules and reap the first mover advantage.”
Future Focus
Nielsen//NetRatings will release May results over the next few days, giving the first full quarter data and paving the
way for in-depth analysis of consumer behaviours and advertising effectiveness on the Internet.
True to its commitment to online client relations, the company will soon roll out My Nielsen//NetRatings, a customised
service delivery tool with a simple and user-friendly interface. It will allow clients to combine views onto a single
screen, and enables regular users to create a report template to automatically generate routine reports that matter to
them most. It also makes searching and sorting much easier, meaning data and insights come handy.
The measurement of mobile phone access, including the WAP technology, and interactive TV are some of the next generation
services planned by ACNielsen eRatings.com.
Business outlook
Miles said the recent market correction among tech stocks has not effected the company’s service. “Quite the contrary,
demand has firmed up as businesses in the new economy seek reliable, standardised, world-wide comparable information to
justify their competitiveness and substantiate their investments in the face of a shake up in the Internet jungle,” he
said.
“In fact, Nielsen//NetRatings is becoming an essential tool in future trend-spotting to achieve success in the fast
developing Internet industry,” added Milnes.
Milnes said the market-leading company was already ramping up for the next phase development of the Nielsen//NetRatings
measurement panel.
The company is conducting tests on the at-work panel that will glean invaluable insights from another substantial user
segment and allow even more effective target marketing.
“This is the largest panel size of any Internet measurement service in New Zealand as well as globally and, coupled with
our proprietary Insight™ technology, ensures our data is the most accurate and consistent of any live data reports
currently available,” said Milnes.
Comprehensive Information Collected
Nielsen//NetRatings delivers comprehensive user activity information including the following:
Site activity (by property, domain and unique site): Audience information on each site includes: Sites visited,
duration, duration and frequency of sessions. Also, unique audience size and demographic profile of the unique audience,
site rank, percentage reach, page views, pages per person, time per person and percentage of pages from browser cache.
User Demographics: Age, gender, education, and occupation.
User’s Site Tracking Information: Referring sites, destination sites, pages rating information.
Advertising Activity (by impression, advertiser, domain): Reports show the most popular ad banners, the top
advertisers and the top domains with the most advertising. Data includes: actual banner image, banner rank, unique
audience size, percentage reach, impressions and click rate.
About Nielsen//NetRatings
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 on the global marketplace.
Nielsen//NetRatings tracks the entire spectrum of Internet user behaviour, leveraging proprietary data-collection
technology from NetRatings. For more information, please visit http://www.nielsen-netratings.com.
Plans call for the Nielsen//NetRatings service to measure the activity of more than 90 per cent of the world’s Internet
users by the end of 2001. The Nielsen//NetRatings service is currently established and reporting audience information in
New Zealand, Australia, the U.S., Singapore, Japan, UK, France, and Ireland.
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.
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