comScore

Yearly online travel spending tops $100B for first time

U.S. consumers spent more than $100 billion on online travel bookings last year, making 2012 the first year ever that the $100 billion figure was surpassed, according to a report from ComScore.

The company, which tracks Web site visitors and other information, said U.S. travel e-commerce sales reached $103 billion in 2012, up 9 percent from the previous year. Air travel bookings, up 10 percent from the previous year, accounted for nearly two-thirds of all travel spending.

The data is the latest signal of just how many consumer tasks are moving online. ComScore noted that travel was a … Read more

Bing falls to 5th global search engine, surpassed by Yandex

Yandex is probably the biggest search engine few people have ever heard of.

The Russian search engine has surpassed Microsoft's Bing in the world's top search engine rankings, according to Search Engine Watch, which got its data from ComScore.

Coming in first place is Google with 114.7 billion search queries and 65.2 percent of the market share. China's Baidu ranked second with 14.5 billion queries and 8.2 percent share. Third was Yahoo with 8.6 billion queries and 4.9 percent share. And, fourth was Yandex with 4.8 billion queries and 2.… Read more

Apple reigns as chief U.S. smartphone maker

As Apple appears to be winning the U.S. smartphone race, Google still has a strong hold as the top mobile platform.

New data by ComScore shows that Apple got the rank of "top smartphone manufacturer" by raking in 36.3 percent of the market share, while Google Android was the No. 1 platform with 53.4 percent share. ComScore tallied this data by surveying more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers between September and December 2012.

To date, 125.9 million people in the U.S. now own a smartphone, which is 54 percent of the … Read more

'Fiscal cliff' fears blamed for flat online holiday spending growth

Growing fears of an impending economic crisis in the new year apparently led to weaker-than-expected U.S. online holiday sales results.

Consumers spent $42.3 billion online during the November-December holiday shopping season, a 14 percent increase over 2011, according to data released today by ComScore. While online shopping set some spending records, overall growth was largely flat, the market analyst concluded.

"This year's growth rate is essentially on a par with last year's," ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a statement. "But despite many positives for the online sector, this year's season did … Read more

Online holiday shoppers spend $35B so far this season

Online spending hit $35 billion over the first 46 days of the holiday season , according to data out yesterday from ComScore.

From November 1 through December 16, sales jumped 13 percent jump over the same period last year. Last week set a record with spending surpassing $7 billion for the first time ever.

Green Monday (a term coined by eBay to refer to the second Monday in December) saw sales of $1.275 billion, while three other days for the season accounted for more than $1 billion in online spending.

However, the 13 percent rise is lower than expected, according … Read more

Facebook ranking would climb with new ComScore system

ComScore has an early Christmas gift for Facebook -- a slight boost in its Internet audience ranking thanks to a change in its measurement system.

ComScore, which tracks Web site visitors and other information, today unveiled its new digital audience measurement and media planning tool dubbed the "Media Metrix Multi-Platform."

Currently in beta in the U.S., the technology tracks audience size and demographics on traditional desktop browsers as well as mobile devices. And it does so in such a way that accounts for people using multiple devices to access the sites.

Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of … Read more

Online holiday spending to hit $43.4 billion this year

Online retailers will have good reason to make merry this holiday season.

People shopping via the Internet will spend to the tune of $43.4 billion during November and December, according to a report out today from ComScore.

That figure is a 17 percent gain over last year's online holiday spending, which itself rose 15 percent over 2010's number. It's also way ahead of the retail industry's expectation of just a 4.1 percent rise in overall consumer spending this season.

"The strength leading up to and during the holiday season-to-date, in addition to a … Read more

Pinterest pierces Top 50 most-visited sites list

ComScore released its list of Top 50 most-visited Web sites in the U.S. for September, and besides the usual big hitters, Pinterest made its debut appearance on the list.

Using its Media Metrix survey service, research firm ComScore found that Google was the top site in September, with 187 million visitors, and was closely followed by Microsoft, Yahoo, and Facebook.

"September also marked the first time that popular social-media site Pinterest cracked ComScore's Top 50 Properties ranking as it surpassed 25 million visitors for the month," ComScore Executive Vice President Jeff Hackett said in a blog … Read more

Google reigns in search for September while Yahoo falls off

Surprise, surprise, Google is still the king of search in the U.S. In fact, any other search engine pales in user numbers comparison.

According to new data released by digital analytics company ComScore today, 66.7 percent of users core searches in September were on Google, which is 0.3 percent higher than August. Trailing behind were Microsoft's search engines, which got 15.9 percent of the market share, and Yahoo came in third with 12.2 percent -- which is down 0.6 percent from August.

Over the last year, Yahoo's share has been in a steady free-fall. … Read more