RETAIL SITES RECEIVED 28% MORE VISITS FROM GOOGLE IN HOLIDAY 2005
Apple's iPod and iTunes dominate product searches and music site visits
NEW YORK, Jan. 11, 2006— 2005 was a banner year for many online retailers, as shoppers avoided crowds and kept fuel costs down by conducting their holiday shopping online. Despite increased familiarity with online shopping sites, online shoppers relied on search engines, particularly Google, to find the appropriate holiday gift.
According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, 11.1 percent of all Shopping & Classifieds site visits originated at Google in December 2005, an increase of 28 percent over December 2004. Yahoo! Search and MSN Search drove 4.05 percent and 0.79 percent of Shopping & Classifieds site visits respectively, while search engines in total drove 18.3 percent of all Shopping & Classifieds visits. The leading retail sites receiving visits from Google in December 2005 were eBay, Amazon, Froogle, and BizRate. These four sites combined accounted for 18.1 percent of Google's downstream retail traffic.
"Just when some thought that search as an acquisition channel had reached its limit, it continues to outpace the market," said Bill Tancer, General Manager of Worldwide Research at Hitwise. "In order to succeed in this increasingly competitive environment, online retailers must find new and creative ways to intelligently leverage this channel."
iPods and MP3 Players were the gift of the season
The share of searches containing the word "ipod" was up an average of 175 percent during the 2005 holiday shopping season compared to 2004 (week ending November 26, 2005 through week ending December 24, 2005 versus week ending November 27, 2004 through week ending December 25, 2004). Searches containing the words "mp3 player" were up an average of 28 percent in the same time period, indicating that the iPod was the winning product with holiday shoppers in 2005.
Visits to music download sites peaked for the year on December 25, 2005, as new product owners went online to download iTunes and purchase music for their products. Visits to the seven leading music download sites skyrocketed 172 percent on Christmas Day (December 25, 2005) compared to Christmas Eve (December 24, 2005). Visits to the music downloading sites were up 183 percent for the last week of the year (week ending January 1, 2005) compared to the prior year (week ending December 23, 2005). The Apple iTunes site led the way, accounting for 41.2 percent of music downloading site visits for the week ending December 31, 2005.
"2005 was another successful year for Apple's iPod, with the introduction of 3 new products – the iPod shuffle, the iPod Nano, and the iPod with video," said Bill Tancer. "No product in recent memory has captured the public's attention in the same way, and led to such an explosion in accessories and complimentary products. As video offerings for the iPod grow, Apple's competitors will have to work hard to challenge its first-to-market status."
Top Music Downloading Sites* by Market Share of Internet Visits to Custom Category
Period - Week ending January 7, 2005
Rank
Name
Domain
Market Share
1.
Apple iTunes
www.apple.com/itunes
39.20%
2.
Walmart.com - Music Downloads
musicdownloads.walmart.com
14.25%
3.
MusicMatch
www.musicmatch.com
13.51%
4.
Rhapsody.com
www.rhapsody.com
12.48%
5.
Napster
www.napster.com
11.77%
6.
Yahoo! Music - Unlimited
launch.yahoo.com/unlimited
5.80%
7.
Connect Music Store
musicstore.connect.com
2.99%
*only includes visits to specified domain; does not include visits to application used for purchasing music
Contact: For media inquiries or to schedule an analyst interview, please contact Lizzie Babarczy: press@hitwise.com (212) 380 2910.
About Hitwise:
Hitwise is the world's leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.
By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites. Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as search marketing, affiliate programs, online advertising, visitor segmentation, content development and lead generation.
Hitwise collects Internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in mega panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.
More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com
