comScore Releases First Comprehensive Review of Pan-European Online Activity

Google most popular property in 13 of 16 countries tracked by comScore

U.K. and Swedish Web users spend more time online than U.S. counterparts

U.K. most active Internet users in Europe

The comScore study compares activity across the 16 countries where comScore tracks Internet usage with panel-based measurement and highlights the differences in Internet development by country.  This harmonized view of European online visitation reveals the following:

·          The Netherlands and Scandinavian countries have the highest percentage of their populations using the Internet, ranging from 68 percent to 83 percent.

·          Germany has the largest online population: 32.6 million people age 15 and older.

·          The U.K. has the most active online population, with the highest average number of daily visitors (21.8 million), the highest usage days per month (21 per user), and the highest average time spent per month per user (34.4 hours).

·          European users average 16.5 usage days per month. Countries that have usage days below the European average are Russia (11.4 average usage days), Austria (12.0), Italy (12.9), Ireland (13.0), Portugal (13.4), Norway (14.7), Denmark (14.7), Switzerland (15.1), Belgium (15.5) and Finland (16.4).

·          The average Swedish user views 4,019 pages per month and views more pages than any other country – 51 percent above the European average of 2,662 pages per month.

“This marks the first time we have released this detailed of a portrait of Internet usage across the 16 countries, making these comparisons truly revealing,” commented Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe.  “Such comparisons are only possible due to the consistency of our panel-based methodology country-to-country.”

The study also revealed that Google is the most popular property in 13 of the 1p6 countries, followed by Microsoft in most countries. Yahoo! remains the 3^rd most popular property across Europe, despite making the top 3 list in only three countries – Ireland, Italy and Spain.

*Excludes Traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

**Estimated Users age 15+ active within 30 days from Home or Work computer as a percentage of total country population age 15+.

About comScore
comScore, Inc. is a global leader in measuring the digital world. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behaviour, including online and offline purchasing. comScore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its proprietary technology, comScore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behaviour and attitudes.  comScore analysts apply this deep knowledge of customers and competitors to help clients design powerful marketing strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI.  For more information, please visit www.comscore.com.