FireFox Browser Charms Web Users to 237 Percent Growth From June 2004, According to Nielsen//NetRatings

NEW YORK, April 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Nielsen//NetRatings, the global standard for Internet audience measurement and analysis, reported today that escalating interest in the FireFox browser garnered a 237 percent spike in unique visitors to the Web site from nine months ago when the site first met Nielsen//NetRatings' minimal reporting levels in June 2004. More than 2.6 million people visited the FireFox site (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox) during March 2005 to download the browser and obtain more information (see Table 1). Males, often the early adopters of technology and gadgets, dominated FireFox's site composition during the month of March 2005. Men accounted for 71 percent or nearly 1.9 million site visitors, compared to the women who comprised of 29 percent or the minority population who visited in March 2005.

 "The search for an alternative browser has grown in recent years, as the Internet's early adopters have begun to think of the browser as something other than a commodity," said Ken Cassar, director of strategic analytics, Nielsen//NetRatings. "FireFox gives Web surfers a simple tool that blocks unsolicited windows, is less susceptible to virus attacks and offers a unique means of navigating multiple sites within a single browser."

Table 1. Growth from June 2004 to March 2005 at FireFox (U.S., Home & Work)

 
  ________________________________________________________________________ 
                                   June 2004      March 2005 
                                Unique Audience Unique Audience 
   Site                              (000)          (000)        Growth 
  ________________________________________________________________________ 
   Mozilla.org/products/firefox       795           2,679          237% 
  ________________________________________________________________________ 
  Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, April 2005 
 
 
 

Traffic to Mozilla.org, the site for the Mozilla Foundation credited with developing the FireFox browser, saw a 284 percent year-over-year growth to 4.1 million unique visitors (see Table 2). When the latest version of FireFox launched in November 2004, Mozilla.org drew its second largest audience with 3.4 million unique visitors.

 
  Table 2. Year Over Year Growth at Mozilla.org (U.S., Home & Work) 
  ________________________________________________________________________ 
                                  March 2004      March 2005 
                               Unique Audience Unique Audience 
   Site                             (000)           (000)        Growth 
  ________________________________________________________________________ 
   Mozilla.org                      1,079           4,143          284% 
  ________________________________________________________________________ 
  Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, April 2005 
 
 
 

Cassar warns that, with FireFox's penetration growing as quickly as it is, publishers need to be certain that their sites are compatible with the upstart browser. "It was looking as though Microsoft Explorer was in the process of establishing itself as the standard browser, which was great news for site developers. With FireFox on the rise, they have to grudgingly accept that they don't live in a one browser world."
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Nielsen//NetRatings reports March 2005 data for the Top Sites by Parent Company and Top Brands. In addition, Nielsen//NetRatings reveals the Top Advertisers by Company for March 2005.
Nielsen//NetRatings Top 10 Web Sites by Parent Company and Top 10 Web Sites By Brand

 
                           Month of March 2005 
 
   Table 1. Top 10 Parent Companies,      Table 2. Top 10 Brands, 
   Combined Home & Work                   Combined Home & Work 
   ____________________________________    ________________________________ 
                    Unique   Time Per                 Unique   Time Per 
                   Audience   Person                 Audience   Person 
  Parent            (000)   (hh:mm:ss)   Brand         (000)  (hh:mm:ss) 
   ____________________________________    ________________________________ 
   1. Microsoft      109,220   2:03:27    1. Yahoo!     98,775   3:00:16 
   ____________________________________    ________________________________ 
   2. Time Warner    100,583   5:23:36    2. Microsoft  92,280   0:44:08 
   ____________________________________    ________________________________ 
   3. Yahoo!          99,282   2:59:49    3. MSN        91,011   1:43:02 
   ____________________________________    ________________________________ 
   4. Google          76,495   0:40:49    4. Google     75,194   0:39:48 
   ____________________________________    ________________________________ 
   5. United States 
      Government      54,495   0:30:23    5. AOL        74,514   6:37:34 
   ____________________________________    ________________________________ 
   6. eBay            53,377   2:08:31    6. eBay       51,589   2:05:27 
   ____________________________________    ________________________________ 
   7. InterActiveCorp 39,789   0:22:20    7. Real       35,731   0:38:41 
   ____________________________________    ________________________________ 
   8. Amazon          38,428   0:21:29    8. MapQuest   35,125   0:12:58 
   ____________________________________    ________________________________ 
   9. RealNetworks    36,730   0:39:38    9. Amazon     34,605   0:18:58 
   ____________________________________    ________________________________ 
   10. Walt Disney                        10. Weather 
       Internet Group 35,039   0:35:25        Channel   29,176   0:16:38 
   ____________________________________    ________________________________ 
 
 
 

Example: The data indicates that 35.0 million home and work Internet users visited at least one of the Walt Disney Internet Group-owned sites or launched a Walt Disney Internet Group-owned application during the month, and each person spent, on average, a total of 35 minutes and 25 seconds at one or more of their sites or applications.
A parent company is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single entity. A brand is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs that has a consistent collection of branded content. Reach is a measure of the unduplicated audience that visits a property. The data is expressed as the percentage of the total universe of Internet users who logged onto the Internet at least once during the reporting period.

 
  Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance Top 10 Advertisers 
 
                           Month of March 2005 
 
 

Top advertisers, ranked by impressions, are based on data from AdRelevance, Nielsen//NetRatings' advertising research service. An impression is counted as the number of times an ad is rendered for viewing.

 
  Top 10 Advertisers by Company 
  _________________________________________________________ 
  Advertiser*                            Impressions (000) 
  _________________________________________________________ 
   1. LowerMyBills.com, Inc.                     2,865,083 
  _________________________________________________________ 
   2. Netflix, Inc.                              2,730,861 
  _________________________________________________________ 
   3. Vonage Holdings Corp                       2,510,228 
  _________________________________________________________ 
   4. Dell Computer Corporation                  2,250,842 
  _________________________________________________________ 
   5. Ameritrade Holding Corporation             1,851,324 
  _________________________________________________________ 
   6. Monster Worldwide, Inc.                    1,650,285 
  _________________________________________________________ 
   7. SBC Communications, Inc.                   1,568,075 
  _________________________________________________________ 
   8. Viacom Inc                                 1,514,142 
  _________________________________________________________ 
   9. InterActiveCorp                            1,494,264 
  _________________________________________________________ 
   10. United Online, Inc.                       1,462,160 
  _________________________________________________________ 
 
 

*Impressions reported exclude house ads, which are ads that run on an advertiser's own Web property.
Example: An estimated 1.5 billion United Online, Inc. ads were rendered for viewing during the surfing period.
About Nielsen//NetRatings
Nielsen//NetRatings, a service provided by NetRatings, Inc. , is the global standard for Internet audience measurement and analysis and is the industry's premier source for online advertising intelligence with its NetView, AdRelevance, @Plan, WebRF, MegaPanel and SiteCensus services. Covering 70 percent of the world's Internet usage, the Nielsen//NetRatings services offer syndicated Internet and digital media research reports and custom-tailored data to help companies gain valuable insight into their business. For more information, please visit http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/.