Top UK Sites: Google Still Leads, Mozilla Growing Fastest

The total UK online population was higher than ever in June - some 31.7 million unique visitors, or 63 percent of the total UK population age 15 and older - according to a comScore World Metrix report on the UK’s top internet properties and top gaining properties for June, writes MarketingCharts.

Some highlights from the comScore data:

• The average internet user in the UK spent almost 35 hours online during the month.
• Google remained the most visited property in the UK with 27.7 million unique visitors in June, reaching 88 percent of the total UK online population, down slightly from May.

• Microsoft and eBay remained the second and third most-visited properties in the UK, with 26.8 million and 22.1 million unique visitors respectively.
• Almost all of the top 20 most-visited properties underwent only modest changes in visitation levels from the previous month, although there were significant gains for Adobe and bebo.com.
• The fastest-growing property in the top 20 was Adobe Sites; its traffic swelled 11 percent as a result of the release of an Acrobat Reader update.
• Social networking site bebo.com was the second biggest growing property in the top 20, its traffic increasing 7 percent.
• The fastest-growing property in June was The Mozilla Organization - driven by the continued uptake of and updates to the Firefox Web browser - with 41 percent more unique visitors than in May.

• Sustained interest in the television show Big Brother buoyed Channel 4’s online audience; it was the second highest gainer, increasing 39 percent to 6.1 million unique visitors.
• Rounding out the top three gainers was social-networking site Facebook.com - growing a further 25 percent in June.

Facebook.com is the 28th most popular property in the UK; if its growth continues as it has over the last 6 months, it may enter the top 20 most-visited properties in July, comScore said.

Other notable gainers during June included The Weather Channel (up 12 percent) and travel sites TUI Group, First Choice Holidays PLC, British Airways and Lastminute.com (up 9 percent, 8 percent, 7 percent and 7 percent respectively), according to the data.