NZ Monthly Online Trends - April 2004

Hitwise Press Release

NZ Monthly Online Trends - April 2004

Auckland, 20th April 2004; Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service has reported on the performance of various websites by New Zealand Internet users during the months of March and April 2004.

Easter weekend crammed with entertainment

As with any long weekend, Easter brought with it it's fair share of entertainment and events. In Auckland the Royal Easter Show ( www.royaleastershow.co.nz) drew thousands of visitors, pushing its website to 28th place in the Entertainment category for the week ending April 10, after ranking 289th less than a month earlier. The average amount of time spent on the site was also up on March statistics more than doubling the average 2 mins 36 seconds spent on the site for the week ending March 27, to in excess of 5 minutes for April 10th.

The Entertainment category as a whole has been on the rise since mid-March accounting for 7.18% of internet traffic to All Sites visited by New Zealand internet users for the week ending April 10. Easter proved to be a busy time around the country with the sites for both Warbirds Over Wanaka (www. warbirdsoverwanaka.co.nz) and the Waiheke Jazz Festival ( www.waihekejazz.co.nz) breaking into the top 100 Entertainment sites.

Warbirds Over Wanaka, the annual air show in the South Island soared up to 56th placing in the Entertainment category for the week ending April 10, peaking on Good Friday at 38th and climbing to 6th place in the Aviation parent category. According to the Timaru Herald from April 12 (http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/timaruherald/0,2106,2872019a6571,00.html) over 50,000 people attended the event, its popularity reflected in website visits with the average time spent on the site increasing in excess of 5 minutes.

The Waiheke Jazz Festival site proved popular as well, reaching 10th place in the Music category for April 8 and remaining at 16th for the week ending April 10. The site's Clickstream data shows that nearly 40% of visitors then went on to the Ticketek webpage ( www.ticketek.co.nz) in the hunt for festival tickets, with another 3.7% visiting Subritzky Line ( www.subritzky.co.nz), the operators of the Auckland to Waiheke ferry service.

The Top 10 Entertainment New Zealand sites for the week ending April 17, 2004.

1

NZCity

www.nzcity.co.nz

2

Virtual Super 12

www.virtualsuper12.co.nz

3

TAB New Zealand

www.tab.co.nz

4

Television New Zealand

www.tvnz.co.nz

5

Village Force Cinemas New Zealand

www.village.co.nz

6

nzoom OnTV

www.ontv.nzoom.com

7

Fantasy Rugby

www.fantasyrugby.com

8

nzoom TV2

www.tv2.co.nz

9

New Zealand Lotteries Commission

www.nzlotteries.co.nz

10

Ticketek New Zealand

www.ticketek.co.nz

Search Term Analysis

Community

This month our Search Term analysis focuses on the Community category, with Hitwise data suggesting New Zealanders have a considerable interest in consumer affairs. The keyword 'consumer' was the most searched for term, with 5.63% of all category searches. 'consumer nz', 'consumer magazine' and 'www.consumer.org.nz' all featured within the top 10 Community category's Search Terms data with 3.29%, 3.12% and 2.95% of searches respectively.

Not surprisingly, with so many related search terms, Consumer Magazine sits at the top of the Community category rankings with over 20% of the category share.

Another popular search term related to the new Maori television channel, was 'Maori TV' registered as the eighth most popular search term for the Community category. This site further validated its popularity amongst New Zealand Internet users, ranking 3rd in the Community category for the week ending April 3 with 4.03% of market share, and a whopping 20.86% bookmark statistic.

Search Term

Share

1

consumer

5.63

2

united nations

4.12

3

plunket

3.29

4

consumer nz

3.29

5

consumer magazine

3.12

6

www.consumer.org.nz

2.95

7

amnesty international

2.62

8

maori television

2.45

9

world vision

2.12

10

tigers

2.12

These search terms reflect the most popular search terms, which resulted in traffic to Community websites for the 12 week period ending April 17th, 2004.

Fast Mover

Aunt Betty's www.auntbettys.co.nz

Position Last Month: 55

Position This Month: 5

Positions moved: 50

This month's fast mover is the pudding and dessert maker Aunt Betty's ( www.auntbettys.co.nz) site, whose nutritious family website rose 50 places this month to peak at #5 in the Food & Beverage - Brands & Manufacturers category.

Site visitors have been spending a lot more time on Aunt Betty's site with the average viewing time increasing to 4 minutes 48 seconds, from a little over 2 minutes in mid-March.

Aunt Betty's recent alignment with the Warriors rugby league team seems to be proving quite popular amongst New Zealand Internet users with the Hitwise Clickstream tool showing 22.73% of upstream visitors came from the Warriors' online rugby league conversion game (games.getreal.co.nz), while the company's triathlon sponsorship sent 10% of downstream visitors to the People's Triathlon Series website ( www.peoplstri.com).

About Hitwise

Hitwise is the leading provider of online competitive intelligence services to Fortune 1000 corporations, providing corporate marketers with real-time insights into their online competitive environment. Via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in mega panels, Hitwise collects anonymous information about the usage habits of more than 25 million Internet users worldwide, covering home, work and educational usage. With a categorized database of over 500,000 of the world's most popularly visited websites, Hitwise is able to offer a daily analysis of over 160 vertical markets in each country of operation.

Hitwise is a privately held company and is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia and operates in US, UK, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

ENDS

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