Study Tracks Europe’s Web Habits
U.S.-based Internet portals remain popular with residential Internet users in Europe’s top three markets, but face entrenched competition from home-grown Web companies there, a market research report to be released today has found.
The study by research firm MMXI Europe BV, the first broad-based survey of the fast-growing European market, tracked Web-surfing habits in Britain, France and Germany of 3,000 home-computer users in each country in October.
“What we see is that the U.S. brands are really international brands, and the higher ranking were the ones which really have adapted their content to the different national cultures,” Arielle Dinard, managing director of MMXI Europe, said in a phone interview Sunday.
“It proves that in order to be really successful, Internet companies have to adapt locally,” the survey spokeswoman said.
Germany’s T-Online and France’s Wanadoo, the Internet access providers owned respectively by telecommunications giants Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom, were the most visited sites in their home markets.
Meanwhile, U.S.-based Yahoo Inc. ranked as the most-visited site in Britain and No. 2 in both Germany and France, the study found.
Such statistics, which extrapolate from the behavior of Web users participating in the study to judge the habits of millions of Internet users, are relied on by advertisers, and often financial investors, to determine which sites are drawing the largest advertising and shopping audiences.
Demonstrating the power of home-field advantage, T-Online was said to attract two-thirds (68%) of Germany’s estimated 5.3 million monthly Internet users in October. Wanadoo lured nearly half of the estimated 2.4 million French Internet users (48%) during that month.
By contrast, Yahoo attracted 38% of the estimated 7.8 million British Internet users, followed closely by Freeserve, Britain’s biggest Internet service provider, which drew a 34% share of the audience.
While its rivals offer local Internet access, Yahoo focuses primarily on programming. For example, Yahoo UK & Ireland provides a network of Web media properties such as news, free e-mail, Web searches, shopping and other features.
Notably lagging was America Online Inc., the dominant provider of Internet access and Web programming services in the United States, suggesting AOL has a way to go to boost its international presence. AOL was No. 3 in Germany but a comparatively lackluster No. 5 in Britain and France.
While America Online properties such as AOL, CompuServe and Netscape Netcenter attract nearly 80% of the U.S. Web audience, they draw less than 30% of the audience in each of Europe’s three largest markets, the Media Metrix data showed.
The new research marks the first monthly study of Internet use in Europe. The effort is comparable to the closely watched statistics on U.S. Internet use at home and work tracked by Media Metrix Inc. in the United States. MMXI Europe is a joint-venture between New York-based Media Metrix and media research firms Ipsos of France and GfK of Germany.
