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Experian Hitwise reports on popularity of Google+ in key Asia-Pacific markets

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Experian Hitwise reports on popularity of Google+ in key Asia-Pacific markets

Singapore sustains growth in share of visits to Google+ due to search engine popularity
Hong Kong rankings lower despite owning highest share of visits to social networking platforms

Singapore, 2 September 2011 — Experian® Hitwise®, part of Experian Marketing Services, today announced data on the popularity of Google+ in key Asia-Pacific markets. Following the beta launch of Google+ from the week ending 16 July, Experian analysis shows that Singapore captured the highest ranking and share of visits to the new platform. Meanwhile, India was the second highest using Google+. Hong Kong ranked the lowest, slightly behind Australia and New Zealand. (Figure 1 below)

hitwise-apac-googleplus
Figure 1: Google+ share of visits in Social Networking and Forums category in key Asia-Pacific countries over 8 rolling weeks ending 27 August 2011
Source: Experian Hitwise

In a comparison of share of visits by country in the Social Networking and Forums category, Google+ in Singapore has enjoyed a continued rate of adoption, ranking 6th with a visit share of 1.2 per cent at its peak for the most recent week ending 27 August. It is the only country that sustained continued growth in visits after the beta launch. The local popularity of Google+ has been driven by the dominance of the Google in Singapore, with over 34.48 per cent of upstream traffic to Google+ originating from the Google Singapore search engine.

In Hong Kong, the adoption of Google+ seems to be much slower than in other countries, ranking 90th with a share of 0.074 per cent in the Social Networking and Forums category during launch week.

Hong Kong’s lower rate of adoption could be attributed to the more established presence and use of local Chinese sites in the social networking category. While Hong Kong Internet users are heavy users of social networks with the highest share of visits to the Social Networking and Forums category, almost 60 per cent of visits are to platforms like Facebook and YouTube, while 40 per cent of the visits are to local Chinese forums and social media including Discuss, Uwants and Sina Weibo etc.

Data from other key Asia-Pacific markets shows that Google+ in New Zealand and Australia peaked at 58th and 84th respectively in the Social Networking and Forums category during the launch. Google+ also performed strongly in India achieving 14th place at its peak. This could be attributed to the rapid growth of India’s mobile and Internet community, its growing economy, as well as the increasing popularity of social media.

Despite minimal impact seen on Facebook visits so far after the launch in all markets except Hong Kong, Google+ sees key reliance on other Google properties such as Google Search, YouTube and Gmail to direct and refer visitors to the new Social platform.

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About Experian Hitwise

Experian Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Experian Hitwise provides its 1,500 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive Web sites and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Experian Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with Internet service providers around the world, Experian Hitwise uses its patented methodology to anonymously capture the online usage, search and conversion behaviour of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy-to-use, Web-based service designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Experian Hitwise operates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at http://www.hitwise.com/sg.

For up-to-date analysis of online trends, visit the Hitwise Intelligence – Analyst Weblogs at http://weblogs.hitwise.com

About Experian Marketing Services

Experian Marketing Services delivers best-in-breed data, analytics and platforms into multiple regions around the globe. It is focused on helping marketers more effectively target and engage their best customers through email, digital advertising, customer data management, customer and competitive insight, data enrichment and list rental, modeling and analytics, and strategic consulting. Through these capabilities, Experian Marketing Services enables organizations to encourage brand advocacy, create measurable return on investment and significantly improve the lifetime value of their customers.

About Experian

Experian is the leading global information services company, providing data and analytical tools to clients in more than 80 countries. The company helps businesses to manage credit risk, prevent fraud, target marketing offers and automate decision-making. Experian also helps individuals to check their credit report and credit score, and protect against identity theft.

Experian plc. is listed on the London Stock Exchange (EXPN) and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. Total revenue for the year ended 31 March 2011 was US$4.2 billion. Experian employs approximately 15,000 people in 41 countries and has its corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Nottingham, UK; California, US; and São Paulo, Brazil.

For more information, visit http://www.experianplc.com.

For more information on Experian Asia-Pacific, visit http://www.experian.com.sg.



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