comScore introduces Device Essentials for measuring digital traffic from all devices
Based on comScore's global Unified Digital Measurement (UDM) data, which uses census-level information from tagged web page content, Device Essentials includes comScore's first publicly available data showing device activity by connection type and device category.
"comScore has announced the availability of Device Essentials to provide critical insight into traffic patterns sourcing from the wide array of devices today," said Serge Matta, comScore executive vice president of Telecom and Wireless. "Using comScore's proprietary global UDM data set, we have been able to develop an expansive profile of traffic patterns across device type, connection type and geography which delivers the critical insight needed by wireless carriers, OEMs, publishers and app developers to optimise their marketing strategies and customer experience."
Page view activity
The company's Device Essentials will initially report exclusively on page view activity and is immediately available across all of comScore's reporting geographies. The number of different reporting dimensions available in this service provides answers to a variety of digital business questions. Reporting capabilities include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Share of smartphone and feature phone usage by OS
- Carrier share of smartphone traffic
- OS share of carrier traffic
- Traffic to site content categories by carrier, OS and device type
- Mobile HTML vs. standard HTML traffic by content by device type
- WiFi vs. Non-WiFi traffic
iPad and other device traffic contribution by country
comScore Device Essentials is designed to shed light on traffic patterns by device across geographies. One of the most rapidly emerging digital traffic trends occurring across many countries is the impact of the Apple iPad and other tablets. In the analysis below of thirteen countries covering five continents, we can see how traffic is sourced from various devices.
| Share of Non-Computer Device Traffic for Selected Countries May 2011 Multi-Country Report for Selected Countries Source: comScore Device Essentials | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tablets | Mobile Phones | Other Devices | |||||||
| iPad | Android | Other Tablet | iPhone | Android | Other Smart- phone | Feature Phone | iPod Touch | Other | |
| Canada | 33.5% | 0.4% | 1.3% | 34.6% | 8.2% | 3.6% | 1.5% | 14.9% | 2.0% |
| Brazil | 31.8% | 1.6% | 0.0% | 21.0% | 11.7% | 11.3% | 17.3% | 4.1% | 1.1% |
| Germany | 29.4% | 0.9% | 0.0% | 35.1% | 16.2% | 4.6% | 2.8% | 8.3% | 2.5% |
| Spain | 27.4% | 0.8% | 0.0% | 34.2% | 22.1% | 7.2% | 2.7% | 3.6% | 1.9% |
| France | 26.9% | 0.6% | 0.0% | 34.3% | 17.1% | 5.7% | 5.5% | 3.9% | 6.0% |
| Singapore | 26.2% | 1.4% | 0.1% | 51.9% | 10.0% | 3.9% | 1.5% | 4.8% | 0.2% |
| Australia | 25.9% | 0.5% | 0.0% | 50.0% | 10.5% | 3.8% | 1.8% | 7.1% | 0.4% |
| US | 21.8% | 0.6% | 0.1% | 23.5% | 35.6% | 6.7% | 2.4% | 7.8% | 1.5% |
| UK | 21.3% | 0.3% | 0.0% | 29.9% | 15.1% | 15.0% | 8.2% | 8.7% | 1.5% |
| Chile | 12.9% | 0.6% | 0.0% | 45.2% | 13.9% | 11.6% | 9.1% | 6.0% | 0.7% |
| Argentina | 12.4% | 0.4% | 0.0% | 12.5% | 23.2% | 16.8% | 27.5% | 6.7% | 0.5% |
| Japan | 11.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 49.5% | 30.6% | 0.2% | 2.6% | 4.7% | 1.1% |
| India | 4.0% | 0.5% | 0.0% | 2.8% | 6.0% | 14.1% | 71.9% | 0.6% | 0.0% |
The iPad is currently the dominant tablet device across all geographies, contributing more than 89% of tablet traffic across all markets. The iPad's contribution to total non-computer device traffic is highest in Canada (33.5%). Brazil has the second highest non-computer device share of traffic coming from the iPad at 31.8%, although non-computer devices account for less than 1% of total traffic in the country. In Singapore, where non-computer devices comprise nearly 6% of total traffic, the iPad accounts for 26.2% of this traffic.
Interestingly, we can see that while Android tablets significantly lag behind Apple in the US tablet market, the platform actually bests Apple in the Smartphone space (35.6% vs. 23.5%). iPod Touches contribute a notable percentage of non-computer device traffic across most countries, while other devices such as e-readers and gaming systems contribute only a very modest percentage.
Newspaper content skews toward mobile and tablet access across geographies
Device Essentials also provides visibility into site content category traffic by geography and device type. In the analysis below, comScore examined traffic patterns to the online newspaper category to understand how much each device type contributes to total category traffic. Among the markets studied, the UK had the greatest share of non-computer device traffic going to the category at 9.8%, followed by Singapore (8.8%), and Japan (7.0%).
| Newspaper Site Category Traffic by Geography and Device Type May 2011 Multi-Country Report for Selected Countries Source: comScore Device Essentials | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Computer | Mobile | Tablet | Other | Non-Computer Traffic Newspaper Category Index* | |
| UK | 90.2% | 7.4% | 1.9% | 0.5% | 184 |
| Singapore | 91.2% | 5.8% | 2.8% | 0.2% | 149 |
| Japan | 93.0% | 5.2% | 1.4% | 0.3% | 151 |
| US | 93.3% | 4.6% | 1.8% | 0.3% | 108 |
| Australia | 94.6% | 3.4% | 1.9% | 0.2% | 126 |
| Chile | 95.4% | 3.9% | 0.4% | 0.3% | 226 |
| Canada | 95.5% | 2.2% | 1.9% | 0.4% | 131 |
| Spain | 96.3% | 2.4% | 1.2% | 0.1% | 163 |
| India | 96.9% | 2.9% | 0.2% | 0.0% | 94 |
| France | 97.7% | 1.1% | 1.1% | 0.1% | 159 |
| Brazil | 98.1% | 1.0% | 0.8% | 0.1% | 316 |
| Germany | 98.1% | 1.1% | 0.7% | 0.1% | 117 |
| Argentina | 98.6% | 1.0% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 124 |
*Non-Computer Device Traffic Newspaper Category Index = Share of Non-PC Traffic for Newspaper
Category / Share of Non-PC Traffic for Total Internet x 100. Index of 100 indicates average representation.
comScore also analyzed the extent to which non-computer device traffic to the newspaper category was overrepresented relative to the category's share of total Internet traffic. The results indicated that across all countries studied, with the exception of India, the newspaper category was significantly more likely than average to be accessed via non-computer devices. Brazil exhibited the highest relative skew in newspaper category traffic (Index of 316), followed by Chile (Index of 226) and the UK (Index of 184).
iOS outpaces Android in US mobile content access via WiFi
Another important dynamic of device traffic is the division between access over mobile networks and access via WiFi/LAN networks. comScore analyzed the differences in traffic patterns between iOS and Android devices to understand these splits by network access, with the results showing that iOS phones and tablets sourced a significantly higher share of device traffic from WiFi networks than Android devices. In the smartphone market, 47.5% of iPhone traffic occurred over WiFi networks compared to 21.7% of Android phones. With respect to tablets, an overwhelming 91.9% of iPad traffic occurred over WiFi networks compared to 65.2% among Android tablets.
| WiFi/LAN Access vs. Mobile Network Access: Traffic by Device May 2011 Total US Source: comScore Device Essentials | ||
|---|---|---|
| Device | Share (%) of Device Page Views | |
| WiFi/LAN Access | Mobile Network Access | |
| Smartphone | ||
| Google Android | 21.7% | 78.3% |
| iPhone | 47.5% | 52.5% |
| Tablet | ||
| Android Tablet | 65.2% | 34.8% |
| iPad | 91.9% | 8.1% |
Source: comScore
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