MOBILE INTERNET EXTENDS THE REACH OF LEADING INTERNET SITES BY 13%

Nielsen launches TotalWeb as the first cross-platform Internet measurement service

New York and San Francisco, CA – May 1, 2008 – The Nielsen Company today reported that mobile Internet extends the audience reach of many leading Internet sites by an average of 13 percent over home PC traffic alone.  For some categories, such as weather and entertainment, the extended reach can be even greater.

The cross-platform insights come from TotalWeb, a new report from Nielsen that integrates data from Nielsen Mobile and Nielsen Online to show the unduplicated, unique audience for more than 200 leading Internet sites across the PC and mobile Internet space.  Nielsen’s data show that for many Internet publishers, mobile Internet increases the overall size of their audience.

“The data demonstrate that the mobile Internet can not only increase the frequency of visits to a website, but also grow the overall size of the pie,” said Jeff Herrmann, Vice President of Mobile Media, Nielsen Mobile.  “Publishers can now monetize their total cross-platform audience, and advertisers will better understand the efficiency and incremental value of mobile Web traffic.”

Nielsen released data that show – by category – how mobile traffic increases, or “lifts,” Internet audience levels.  Weather sites get a strong lift from mobile, meaning there are people who access the sites over their phone but not over their home PC, while shopping sites have a mostly duplicated audience, meaning that mobile users who access shopping sites on their phone likely also do so over their home PC:

TotalWeb - Average Online Audience Lift Provided by Mobile Web,
by Category (Q4 2007)

 Source: TotalWeb Q4 2007, The Nielsen Company.  Based on 200+ Internet sites measured across both Home PC and Mobile Internet.

*To be read: In Q4 2007, weather sites measured by TotalWeb averaged a 22% lift in overall audience reach through mobile web traffic, over home PC traffic alone.  

According to Nielsen, 87 million U.S. mobile users subscribe to mobile Internet services, and more than one in ten mobile subscribers (13.7 percent) actively uses mobile Internet each month.  TotalWeb integrates data from Nielsen Online and Nielsen Mobile to report how this growing segment uses both mobile devices and PCs to access the Web.

Nielsen collects TotalWeb data through a survey of active mobile Internet users in Nielsen Online’s MegaPanel, the world’s highest quality metered Internet panel. Members of the panel have their Internet access and behavior via mobile devices and PCs analyzed to provide site-level reporting of unique audience, active reach, unduplicated audience, audience overlap, and demographics across platforms. 

“Unduplicated measurement of the total Internet audience will help AccuWeather.com show advertisers the value of our cross-platform audience,” said Dave Wrieden, Executive Director at AccuWeather.com, which received a 43 percent audience lift from mobile Internet users.  “Nielsen’s TotalWeb service is the only product that gives us that number and so is an important advancement in Internet audience measurement.”

The TotalWeb report is available today.

About Nielsen Mobile

The Nielsen Mobile unit of The Nielsen Company is the world's largest independent provider of syndicated consumer research to the telecom and mobile media markets.  The Nielsen Mobile unit focuses exclusively on tracking the behavior, attitudes and experiences of mobile consumers; their reports also provide up to seven years of data on internet, video, gaming, audio and advertising trends for mobile phone users.  Nielsen’s technology-driven research provides unique and holistic insight into how mobile customers use their devices and what they think about brands, devices and services.  For more information, please visit www.nielsenmobile.com.

About Nielsen Online

Nielsen Online, a service of The Nielsen Company, delivers comprehensive, independent measurement and analysis of online audiences, advertising, video, consumer-generated media, word of mouth, commerce and consumer behavior and includes products previously marketed under the Nielsen//NetRatings and Nielsen BuzzMetrics brands.  With high quality, technology-driven products and services, Nielsen Online enables clients to make informed business decisions regarding their Internet, digital and marketing strategies.  For more information, please visit www.nielsen-online.com.

About The Nielsen Company

The Nielsen Company is a global information and media company with leading market positions in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), online intelligence (NetRatings and BuzzMetrics), mobile measurement, trade shows and business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek). The privately held company is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands, and New York, USA.  For more information, please visit, www.nielsen.com.

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Nic Covey (Nielsen Mobile)

(312) 385-6718