Travelers head online as Summer Vacation approaches

Whether consumers were making their plans for summer vacation or simply finding their way around town, over half of Internet users visited Travel websites in April 2012.  Google Maps was the top web brand in the category during April, with 79 million unique U.S. visitors, followed by other popular mapping sites like Mapquest (29.6 million) and Yahoo! Local (15.2 million). Visitors to Google Maps returned frequently, visiting the site about 5 times each on average, logging well over 1 billion pageviews on the site.

Looking towards Memorial Day weekend in the U.S., travellers planning trips a little further from home also headed online to make plans, visiting sites like TripAdvisor, Expedia, and Priceline Network to plan their trips (respectively 13.2 million, 12.9 million, and 12.2 million unique visitors each, respectively).  Millions more booked airfare on sites SouthwestAirlines.com and other airlines sites, as consumers searched for the best travel deals, with about half of visitors to TripAdvisor also visiting Expedia during the same month and a third also visiting Priceline sites.

Key findings on black consumers’ online activities include:

• During the fourth quarter of 2012, 63 percent of black adults made a purchase online.
• Black Internet users spent 22 percent of their time online visiting Social Networks/Blogs in December 2011.
• YouTube accounted for 48 percent of black viewers’ online video time during December 2011, and 31 percent of black adults online watched consumer-generated video across the Web.

For more info and insights, download the complete series of Digital Black Consumer infographics.

The 12-17 demo is proving that they are also game, quite literally, for watching or playing just about anywhere in the home—including basements and garages. More than half (52%) of their time spent with a gaming console happens in either non-traditional spaces or bedrooms while 48 percent is spent gaming in more social environs, such as a living or family room.

When it comes to television, the 12-17 demo is proving that times may change, but teens will be teens, spending nearly the same amount of time viewing TV in bedrooms as they do in family rooms. Overall, teenagers spent 47 percent of their total TV viewing in their bedrooms versus 48 percent in family rooms.

In contrast, the 35-64 demo spends 62 percent of their total TV in a shared space and only 31 percent of their time in the bedroom. Those 65 and older spend the largest chunk of their viewing time (69%) in a family or living room.

Since its founding in 2004, the social network has passed many milestones as it skyrocketed from a few million U.S. users to millions more around the world. Looking back at Nielsen data from over the last eight years, here are some of the key moments in Facebook’s story:

• In January 2009 Facebook passed Myspace to become the top social network/blog site for the first time, a position it’s held in the U.S. ever since.
• Between 2005 and 2009 Facebook doubled its traffic each year in the U.S., surpassing 10 million uniques for the first time in November 2006 (11.6M).
• Facebook connected friends around the globe quickly: reaching 10 million unique UK visitors by April 2008. In 2009, the French, Spaniards and Germans followed suit, with 10 million visitors apiece in January, May and November, respectively.
• As recently as August 2011, Facebook overtook Orkut as the top social networking site in Brazil; it has continued to grow its audience since then.

Facebook continues to grow around the world, with consumers in each market finding unique uses for social media sites. While Facebook is the top social network globally, many netizens visit multiple social media sites; in Japan blog sites are more popular in the social media category (Facebook is ranked 5th), and in Brazil sites like Tumblr and Google+ are growing quickly as well. Currently Facebook is the top Social Networking & Blogs site in eleven of the following 12 markets:

Some things haven’t changed, however. The Top Five Apps continue to be Facebook, YouTube, Android Market, Google Search, and Gmail. And smartphone owners spend just about the same amount of time on apps each day (37 minutes a day in 2011 compared to 39 minutes today). Finally, privacy continues to be a concern with the vast majority (70% in 2011 and 73% in 2012) expressing concern over personal data collection and 55 percent wary of sharing information about their location via smartphone apps.

While the in-home TV and computer are still the most popular devices to watch video content, usage and growth in online and mobile technologies is making a sustained impact. Three-quarters (74%) of global respondents report watching video via the Internet (on any device), up four points since 2010, and over half of global online consumers (56%) say they watch video on a mobile phone at least once a month and 28 percent at least once a day.

Mobile video is particularly prominent in Asia-Pacific and Middle East/African regions, where 74 and 72 percent of online consumers, respectively, report watching video on mobile phones at least once a month, and almost 40 percent (38% and 37%, respectively) say they do so at least once a day. While mobile video is currently less prominent in North America than in other parts of the world, it is seeing the highest growth rates in mobile phone video consumption. Thirty-eight percent of North American respondents say they watch mobile video once a month, up eight points compared to the 2010 reported results.

“The convenience of mobile connectivity has revolutionized how people are engaging with digital content and each other around the world,” said Dounia Turrill, SVP, Client Insights, Nielsen. “With the growth of smartphones, mobile video consumption is on the rise for entertainment content, particularly in emerging markets where many consumers leapfrog home Internet altogether in favor of the all-in-one smartphone.”

For more, download Global Online Consumers and Multi-Screen Media: Today and Tomorrow

About the report
The Nielsen Global Survey of Multi-Screen Media Usage was conducted in August/September 2011 and polled more than 28,000 consumers in 56 countries throughout Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and North America. The sample has quotas based on age and sex for each country based on their Internet users, and is weighted to be representative of Internet consumers and has a maximum margin of error of ±0.6%. This Nielsen survey is based on the behavior of respondents with online access only. Internet penetration rates vary by country. Nielsen uses a minimum reporting standard of 60 percent Internet penetration or 10M online population for survey inclusion. The Nielsen Global Survey was established in 2005.

Social Networking

American moms use social media frequently, with nearly three out of four moms visiting Facebook during March 2012. When using social media, moms are 38 percent more likely to become a fan of or follow a brand online, and moms who blog are more than twice as likely to follow brands and celebrities compared to the online average.

Moms visit blogs more often, and are 27 percent more likely to visit Blogger and 26 percent more likely to visit Wordpress.com than the general online population. In fact about one in three bloggers are moms, and 52 percent of bloggers are parents with kids under 18 in their household.

Shopping and Surfing

To help save time and money, many moms shop online; moms are 35 percent more likely to shop for clothes, 50 percent more likely to buy toys, 29 percent more likely to buy music, and 23 percent more likely to purchase e-books online within the past 30 days. When browsing the web Pinterest is an increasing popular as well, with almost 5 million American moms visiting the site, representing more than a third of their unique visitors from home computers during March 2012.

According to an earlier study by NM Incite, at least half of moms use social media via mobile devices, compared to 37 percent of the online population. Overall 54 percent of moms own smartphones (among US mobile subscribers), keeping them connected with family and friends.

To learn more about the digital habits of moms, sign-up for Nielsen’s upcoming webinar, The American Media Mom: Always-On, In Control, and Changing the Rules for Marketers

• Men spend 50 percent more time browsing the web on their smartphones than women.
• Women spend 3 hours more on calls every month as compared to men.
• Women spend 4 times the amount of time men spend on Instant Messaging (Chat) applications.
• Men experiment more with apps – they install, on an average, 16 applications in a month compared to just 11 by women.

Calls & Messaging
Women spend nearly 20 hours a month on calls and messaging which is almost 33 percent more than time spent by men on the same activity. Also, incoming and outgoing calls both last longer among women.

Web Browsing
Men spend 50 percent more time browsing on their smartphones than women. The average number of websites visited by men is 20 in a month compared to just 14 among women. However, women prefer social sites more than men as 43 percent of web pages visited by women are social networking sites, compared to just 32 percent for men.

Online Applications
Women use online apps substantially higher compared to men, driven mainly by chat apps such as WhatsApp Messenger (which women use three times as much as men), Google Talk and Nimbuzz. Men however, don’t mind asking for directions on their smartphones, accessing the Google Maps app more than women (45% vs 32%). Men also install more apps than women – 16 applications in a month compared to just 11 by women. For both men and women around 20 percent of all apps installed are online apps.

About Nielsen Informate
Nielsen Informate  Mobile Insights leverages innovative smartphone metering technology to provide intelligence into evolving consumption patterns of mobile device users. Based on accurate, real-time usage data, we help clients understand consumer behavior and develop product and marketing strategies. Nielsen Informate maintains opt-in smartphone panels to generate syndicated reports, in addition to building custom panels and conducting custom surveys for clients. Our insights aid decision makers across various segments like operators, OEMs, publishers, advertisers, content creators and aggregators and application developers.

Other findings include:

• Spending on cable TV has increased steadily over the last few years, up 42 percent from 2007.
• The average TV commercial in 2011 was 28.4 seconds.
• Spanish-language cable and network TV saw double digit growth in ad spend, up 24 percent and 16 percent, respectively, from 2010.
• Automotive was the largest category for advertising spend across all media, with $10.2 billion spent by automotive brands in 2011, more than twice as much as the second-largest category—quick-service restaurants.
• AT&T and Verizon were the top TV spenders during 2011 for brands AT&T Wireless Web Access ($1.1 billion) and Verizon Wireless Web Access ($702.2 million).

Download all three installments of Nielsen’s State of the Media: Advertising & Audiences Report:

• State of the Media: Advertising & Audiences Part 3: By Media Type
• State of the Media: Advertising & Audiences Part 2: By Demographic
• State of the Media: Advertising & Audiences Part 1: Primetime by Genre