New Zealand Monthly Overview - July 2003

New Zealand Monthly Overview - July 2003

Winter Sports Scoring Online Hits

The mountains are covered with snow, the All Blacks are firing on all cylinders, and the Silver Ferns are the newly crowned world champions - it's winter and kiwi sports fans are enjoying the spectacle. And with more Tri-Nations action, the finals of the NRL and the Rugby World Cup fast approaching, Hitwise is recording a steady increase in traffic to the Sports category.

One of the major sporting events in July was the netball world championship, which saw the Silver Ferns power their way to the final and a long-awaited victory over their trans-Tasman rivals. Kiwi fans followed the ferns' path to victory through the Netball New Zealand website ( www.netballnz.co.nz), which peaked as the #1 local sports site on the final day of the competition. Visitors also stayed at the site for longer periods during the week of the tournament, with the average visit lasting for just over 4 minutes. The All Blacks are also having a successful year, with the build-up to the World Cup on track. Traffic to popular rugby sites AllBlacks.com and NZRugby.com peaked immediately after the recent matches against South Africa and Australia, no doubt helped by emphatic All Black victories in Loftus Versfeld and Sydney. The sites also exchanged traffic, with 14% of traffic from AllBlacks.com visiting NZRugby.com, and a further 18% of traffic from NZRugby.com headed back to the AllBlacks.com site. Advertising on AllBlacks.com is also providing enticing for surfers, as 1.4% of traffic heads to the All Blacks Mastercard site (www.allblacksmastercard.co.nz), with a similar percentage aiming at the All Blacks SMS Alerts site (allblacks.tm.co.nz). Increased interest in sporting events has also led to interest in broader sporting portals, with nzoom ONE Sport ( www.onesport.nzoom.com) emerging as the clear leader in terms of online traffic. A comparison of the site's traffic from the same period last year indicates its growing popularity. In July last year, the site recorded its highest market share with 2.91% of the category share for the Hitwise Sports category. In the week just past, the site accounted for 4.33% of traffic to the sports category, indicating a very significant increase in market share. Aided by its live scoring services, the site is holding visitors for an average of just over 6 minutes, an increase of one minute on the previous week.

Fast mover This month's report is based on Hitwise data for the month of July 2003. Auckland Regional Council www.arc.govt.nz Position last month - 2381 Position this month - 581 Positions jumped - 1800 An ongoing public debate about rates levels set by the Auckland Regional Council has led to a rise in visits to the site. Jumping a total of 1800 places since the end of June, the site has also quadrupled its market share in the Local Government category, from 2.3% to 9.5% in the space of 4 weeks. As well as information about rates, the site also provides a range of information about council services and attractions in the broader Auckland region.

News in brief

Uni and Polytech students hit the books again

Midyear holidays are over for thousands of tertiary students around the country, as shown by a surge in the Hitwise Education Institutions category. After reaching a market share low of just under 1.25% a month ago, traffic has now increased by over 20% to be sitting at about 1.53% of all New Zealand Internet traffic. The category has been boosted by strong performances from Massey and Auckland Universities' online learning facilities ( www.cecil.edu and webct.massey.ac.nz). The category is also seeing strong growth from some newer sites, including the AUT Online Learning facility ( www.autonline.ac.nz), which has jumped a massive 185 places over the past month. The strength of this site indicates the growth of the University, and its ability to compete with the larger, more established institutions. Snow bunnies check out the conditions online

The websites of popular ski resorts and mountains are dominating the Hitwise Travel category, with MtRuapehu.com, Snow.co.nz and NZSki.com all in the top 10. The same sites are also jostling for position in the Snow Sports category, currently sitting at numbers 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Skiiers and snowboards looking for gear, are also heading online, with the website of Tokaanu Ski and Snowboard Hire sitting at #9 in the Shopping - Sports and Fitness category. Qantas and Air New Zealand still flying in the rankings

Recent talk of Qantas buying into Air New Zealand has been reflected in traffic to the official website of the New Zealand Commerce Commission ( www.comcom.govt.nz). The site, which provides a range of information about deliberations and submissions on the proposed buyout is currently ranked #66 of all government sites, an increase of 21 in the past month. The sites of both Qantas ( www.qantas.com.au) and Air New Zealand ( www.airnz.co.nz) also continue to rank highly, particularly in the Commercial Airlines category, where they rank at #2 and #1 respectively. Traffic between the sites is also very healthy, with 7.8% of traffic from Air New Zealand headed to the Qantas site, while 4.61% of Qantas' downstream traffic headed back to the Air New Zealand site.

Category Spotlight: Automotive

latest weekly data, NZ Sites The top 10 NZ Automotive sites for July:

Rank Name Domain

1 AutoPoint New Zealand www.autopoint.co.nz

2 NZ CarBuys www.nzcarbuys.co.nz

3 Autobuy Online Vehicle Sales www.autobuy.co.nz

4 Rate My Ride.co.nz www.ratemyride.co.nz

5 NZHondas.com www.nzhondas.co.nz

6 AutoBase www.autobase.co.nz

7 ModifyMyCar.com www.modifymycar.com

8 Performance Car - Forums forums.performancecar.co.nz

9 New Zealand Automobile Association www.aa.co.nz

10 New Zealand Mitsubishi Mad Crew www.nzmmc.co.nz About Hitwise

Hitwise is the leading provider of online competitive intelligence services to Fortune 1000 corporations, providing corporate marketers with real-time insights into their online competitive environment. Via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in mega panels, Hitwise collects anonymous information about the usage habits of more than 25 million Internet users worldwide, covering home, work and educational usage. With a categorized database of over 300,000 of the world's most popularly visited websites, Hitwise is able to offer a daily analysis of over 150 vertical markets in each country of operation.

Hitwise is a privately held company and is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia and operates in New Zealand, UK, US, Hong Kong, Australia and Singapore.

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