Hitwise: NZ Online Trends - August 2004

NZ Online Trends - August 2004

Auckland – 17th August 2004 – Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service reports on the following online usage habits in New Zealand:

Shaky Stock Fuels Interest Online

As stocks tumbled in the United States due to a surge in oil prices, online activity in the stocks and shares sector soared. New Zealand internet users flocked to find out the latest news or to trade stock on August 3, just as the stock market in the US was experiencing turbulence and loss in altitude. Many New Zealand based websites reaped the benefits of this market uncertainty, rising considerably in the ranking statistics on this day.

Access Brokerage (www.accessbrokerage.co.nz) was one such site that registered a significant jump in traffic. Access Brokerage is a member of the New Zealand Stock Exchange, providing share broking services and stock market information to retail investors. Offering up-to-date figures, results and news, Access Brokerage took full advantage of increased interest in the market. The site rose from 199th position in all New Zealand websites on August 1, to an impressive 36th position on August 3. On this day Access Brokerage also rose to claim the number one position in the Business and Finance - Stocks and Shares category, edging out the second placed Yahoo! Finance (finance.yahoo.com).

The New Zealand Herald's StockWatch (www.stockwatch.co.nz) website recorded similar increases in rankings in this time period. A subsection of the New Zealand Herald's online version, this site offers articles, market analysis, and results. Users of StockWatch can trade online, create portfolios and use e-mail alerts to monitor stock prices. These services and information were no doubt in demand by Internet users at the start of August, as the site rose from 200th most popular New Zealand website on the 1st of the month, to 45th position on August 3.

The official website of the New Zealand Stock Exchange (www.nzse.co.nz) also witnessed success, becoming the 60th most popular local website on August 3, increasing its ranking position from 331st on August 1.

This increased online interest in the stocks and shares market helped ShareChat (www.sharechat.co.nz) break into the top 100 New Zealand websites on August 3, rising from 118th position on the 2nd, up from 269th the day before. ShareChat provides New Zealand market investors with news, features, forums, financial resources, market information, sharebroker profiles, and educational features.

In a similar manner New Zealand Herald Portfolio (portfolio.nzherald.co.nz) rose from 93rd position in the local Business and Finance category on August 1, to clinch the 26th spot on the August 3. On this day, five New Zealand websites focusing solely on stocks and shares information appeared in the top 30 websites of the Business and Finance category.

Fast Mover

Virtual NPC
www.virtualnpc.co.nz
Position Last Month: 3999
Position This Month: 101
Positions moved: 3898

Success has not been confined to the playing field this NPC season, with the Virtual NPC website notching up victories of its own online. Rising from 919th most popular New Zealand website for the week ending July 24, to the towering position of 28th in the latest weekly rankings for August. Achieving a top 5 spot in Sports websites, and holding the no.1 position in the Sports - Fantasy and Entertainment - Competitions categories this week, Virtual NPC's season so far has been very impressive. While Virtual NPC is attracting more visitors, they are also staying longer, with the average visit time rising from 2 minutes 16 seconds in June, to 7 minutes 55 seconds in July, to a lengthy 9 minutes 51 seconds in August.

Created by Air New Zealand and the New Zealand Rugby Football Union, Virtual NPC is a tipping competition where players can win prizes and game points. The points will be automatically converted to Air Points at the end of the season. Not surprisingly, the Air New Zealand (www.airnz.co.nz) website features in Virtual NPC's clickstream data, ranking 10th in sites visited before Virtual NPC, and 17th in sites visited afterwards.

Bookmark data also shows visitors indicating their intentions to return to the site in August, with 8.55% of them adding this website to their bookmarks in the month of July. However, the first week of August sees this figure slip slightly, with bookmark statistics registering 7.98%.

Search Terms Analysis: Shopping and Classifieds - Books

This month our Search Term analysis focuses on the Shopping and Classifieds - Books category, offering an insight into how New Zealanders are searching for, and finding, online bookstores.

Dominant category leader Amazon (www.amazon.com) featured prominently in the Shopping and Classifieds - Books category's Search Terms data, boasting four of the top 10 category's search terms with 'amazon', 'amazon.com', 'amazon books' and 'www.amazon.com'. Collectively, these four Amazon search terms account for 42.53% of market share in this category. No doubt these search terms also led visitors to the United Kingdom version of Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk), which is second place in the category with a significant 12.58% in rankings statistics.

Performing consistently at third position in the category rankings is the New Zealand online bookstore Real groovy (www.realgroovy.co.nz). The site recorded the fifth and sixth most popular search terms, with 'real groovy' and 'realgroovy' accounting for 6.01% and 5.87% of market share respectively.

Other popular search terms were 'abebooks' with 10.81%, 'whitcoulls' with 8.09%, and 'bookfinder.com' with 1.26% of market share.

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 affiliate programs, search marketing, online advertising, 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 Melbourne, Australia and operates in the USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.

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