January 2007: Apple.com led all hardware manufacturers in time per visit and unique visitors

Feb
26

By: switchtoamac at: 1:27 PM on February 26, 2007 | Comments (2)

An article at Internet Retailer details statistics from a January 2007 Nielsen/NetRatings report that demonstrates that Apple.com led all computer hardware manufacturers in average time per visit and number of unique visitors.

The article states, "Apple Computer Inc. continued to lead all computer hardware manufacturers, at 43.51 million in January, and also scored the fourth-largest increase, up 24% from 34.98 million."

The data for January 2007 was as follows (as listed by Internet Retailer).

In average time per visit (hours:minutes:seconds, plus number of unique visitors in millions), the leaders were:
Apple 1:19:25; 43.5
Dell, 0:19:32; 15.6
Nintendo, 0:19:29; 2.1
Xbox, 0:16.06; 1.5
Palm, 0:13:51; 1.3
TiVo, 0:13:24; 0.87
HP, 0:12:53; 16
IBM, 0:12:51; 2.2
Sony Computer Entertainment, 0:12:48; 1.5
Gateway, 0:10:56; 2.4

You can view the full article here.

Commentary
The average time per visit spent at Apple.com trumps the time spent at Dell by about one hour. What explains the difference? In my view, the data has to take into account the "number of unique visitors". Apple had 43.5 million unique visitors and you can bet a significant number of those visitors don't even own a Mac. I'll take the stance that an increasing number of potential computer buyers are considering a Mac as their next computer purchase and hence, they are taking their time to navigate through the site as they attempt to learn more about the current generation of Macs.

I'm eager to see the February 2007 data as it will contain metrics for the first full month following the release of Microsoft Windows Vista. Will the February data show another strong month for visits to Apple.com or did Vista have an impact? We'll have to wait and see.

2 Reader Comments

Victor Panlilio on: February 26, 2007 8:55 PM said:

Three words: Quicktime movie trailers

John Muir on: February 27, 2007 7:55 AM said:

Way back in March 2003 I spent a lot of time at Apple.com during the week or two leading up to my first Mac's purchase: a 12" PowerBook G4. As a Windows geek back in those days, I needed a lot of convincing that the ultimate leap was worth my while and money. I read up on OS X (which I had previously never even heard of ... last Mac I'd ever used was OS 8) and "discovered" that MS Office was on the Mac too and actually looked pretty good compared to Office 2000 on Windows 2000 which I was used to. Yes, I was a real newb! But that all turned around pretty quickly thanks to Apple's excellently organised site and a few more weeks once I finally had Jaguar in my hands. Great times!

You didn't mention one of the crucial events of this January though. The iPhone announcement and media frenzy will be responsible for a fair few of those hits.

Anyway, looking at the competition gives you a good idea why their average visit is so much shorter than Apple's. Not only do their products mostly suck, but so do their sites. Sheesh, learn how to design pleasurable and intuitive stores people!

One last thing: Microsoft will definitely have some more hits thanks to Vista in February. Let's see how long it lasts...