What are Singaporeans Doing Online?

Social Networking, Portals and Stocks & Shares Leading Singapore Industries;

Singapore Online Shopping and Banking lagging overseas markets

Singapore – 2 April, 2008 – Hitwise Singapore, the leading competitive intelligence service, today provides a snapshot of the leading industries that Singapore Internet users visit. The update includes comparisons with major overseas markets, Australia and United States.

Key Findings based on a selection of Hitwise’s 165+ online industries analysed include the following:

• Social Networking & Forums - was the dominant sub-category online, representing 10.2% of all Internet visits by Singapore users. Visits to Social Networking & Forums websites was ahead of both Australian and US usage, with 8.38% and 9.4% share of visits respectively. YouTube was the leading player in the Singapore Social Networking & Forums industry with 16.84% share of visits, followed by Friendster for the week ending 15 March 2008. The high engagement of users with social networks was also demonstrated by a relatively long average session duration. YouTube attracted an average session duration of 27 minutes 54 seconds; and Friendster with 20 minutes 52 seconds for the week ending 15 March 2008. Both were significantly higher than the overall average of 12 minutes 32 seconds.
  
  
• Search Engines - accounted for 9.12% share of all website traffic the week ending 15 March 2008. Google search properties were responsible for powering more than 60.77% of searches for the 24 weeks ending 15 March 2008. Singapore Search Engine usage was behind the Australian market (10.79%) but ahead of US usage (8.76%).
  
  
• Portal Frontpages – was a leading industry in the Singapore market accounting for 8.01% share of all Internet visits, ahead of Email Services with 6.02% share. Singapore visits to Portal Frontpages was also ahead of the Australian and US markets which attracted 4.43% and 5.55% share of visits respectively. Yahoo! Singapore was the leading player in the Portal Frontpages industry with 52.91% share, followed by MSN with 18.13% for the week ending 15 March 2008.
  
  
• Stocks and Shares – was an important commercial industry amongst the top 20 categories visited by Singapore Internet users, accounting for 2.7% share of visits for the week ending 15 March 2008; ahead of visits in the Australian (1.16%) and US (0.97%) markets. This provides a strong indication that Singapore Internet users are engaging in significant research online for trading activity. Conversely, visits to Banks & Financial Institutions accounted for 1.74% share, lagging both the Australian and US markets, which attracted 4.31% and 3.59% share of visits respectively.
  
  
• Shopping & Classifieds – accounted for 3.13% market share of visits for the week ending 15 March 2008, significantly less than the Australian and US markets, which attracted 5.73% and 9.7% share of visits respectively. Overseas standards indicate that there is potential for improved performance by vendors in the retail sector to increase online engagement. This is further highlighted by the fact that 62.9% of Singapore visits to Shopping & Classifieds websites were directed to overseas websites suggesting local inventory opportunities. Yahoo! Auctions Singapore was the leading website in the Shopping & Classifieds industry with 5.05% share of visits for the week ending 15 March 2008.

For further information email press.au@hitwise.com

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,400 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise’s patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior 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.

Hitwise, a subsidiary of Experian (FTS: EXPN) www.experiangroup.com operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at http://weblogs.hitwise.com and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.