European women drive most engagement: Online retail, community websites

The data for May, which includes internet usage in 49 European markets aggregated into the European region and individual reporting on 18 markets, also highlights the site categories and web properties with the highest concentration of usage among women in Europe. Tumblr.com had the highest concentration of usage among women, who accounted for 69% time spent on the popular social network. The report also showed that women generated the majority of time spent on multiple Retail subcategories, such as Fragrances/Cosmetics (71% share), Apparel (67%) and Department Stores (65%).

Women have highest concentration of usage on Tumblr, Otto and Groupon

In Europe, 191.5 million females age 15 and older went online in May 2012, representing 48.4% of the total internet audience and 46.9% of time spent online during the month. Among the top 100 web properties in Europe, Tumblr had the highest concentration of usage among women, who accounted for 69% of all time spent on the site. German retail site Otto Gruppe (68.8%) ranked second on this dimension, while leading daily deal site Groupon (61.7%) rounded out the top 3. The total amount of time European women spent on Mail.ru websites was particularly high, but perhaps not surprising, as this group includes email services and Russia's second largest social networking sites Odnoklassniki.

*Among the top 100 online properties

Retail and community sites score high with female audience

Retail subcategories made up half of top 10 site categories by share of time spent among females, showcasing the gender's penchant for online shopping in comparison to their male counterparts. Retail- Fragrances/Cosmetics came out on top, with women accounting for 70.9% of time spent in the category during the month, followed by Community - Beauty/Fashion/Style (67.9% share) and Retail - Apparel (66.8% share). Health Information also had a relatively high share of female engagement (63.6%), suggesting a greater likelihood of proactive engagement on health issues.

European internet usage by country

Below is a snapshot of European internet usage in the 18 reportable markets for which comScore provides individual reporting. The Russian internet audience continued to be the largest online market in Europe with 57.9 million users going online in May. The UK audience was the most engaged across Europe, with an average user spending 39.1 hours online, an increase of 5% over the past month. Turkey ranked first when it came to the average pages a user visited during the month at 3,674.