News.com.au has taken the top spot in the online current events & global news category and online retail notably increased eyeballs or audiences in the lead up to Christmas, according to latest research from Nielsen.

Nielsen Online Ratings reveal News.com.au attracted a unique audience of 3.69 million during November 2014, overtaking SMH.com.au which has held the top spot for the past three consecutive months.

Other notable shifts in the current events and global news category are The Age, jumping up the ranks from eighth to sixth position with a unique audience of 2.35 million and The Guardian, coming off an all-time high in October 2014 saw a normalisation of unique audience with 1.90 million in November 2014.

Yahoo!7 reported the biggest gain of the top ten mastheads in the current events & global news category for time spent on their site, up 27% to 33 minutes compared to the prior month, followed by The Guardian up 12% to 40 minutes and 9NEWS Websites up 11% to 49 minutes. News.com.au retained the top spot in the time spent metric for November 2014, followed by The Age, (see table below.)

DOUBLE DIGIT GROWTH FOR ONLINE AUSSIE RETAILERS

Nielsen revealed double digit growth for many major online retailers in November 2014 compared to the prior month as the lead up to Christmas saw consumers jump online for the latest online deals, range of choices and to shortcut the Christmas checkout queue.

Among retailers with digital audiences of more than a million people per month, Kmart Australia led the growth story with an additional 447,000 people during November 2014 (+44%), followed by Kogan which gained an incremental 308,000 people (+26%) and JB Hi-Fi with an additional 308,000 (+21%) compared to the prior month. Additional retailers with an online store that showed significant audience growth compared to the same time period last year include Bing Lee (+102%), Rivers (+53%) and ToysRus (+49%).

Convenience is key at this time of year says Monique Perry, Head of Nielsen’s Media Industry Group. “People are so time poor and convenience means consumers can do their shopping when they want, where they want and in an efficient way – this need is unquestionably met by the combination of mobile connected devices and increasing confidence as a result of even better online retail experiences.”

Separately, Nielsen confirmed that MSN.com’s Australian homepage appeared for the first time in the Hybrid measurement solution since the launch. The MSN.com homepage recorded a total unique audience of 2.60M people for November 2014.

TOP SITES RANKED BY UNIQUE AUDIENCE – CURRENT EVENTS & GLOBAL NEWS

Name	Unique Audience (000)	Page Views Per Person	Sessions Per Person	Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)
news.com.au	3,691	54	13.14	01:39:42
smh.com.au	3,471	34	10.43	01:02:26
ABC News Websites	2,917	25	7.99	00:42:53
Daily Mail Australia	2,519	17	6.30	00:49:10
9NEWS Websites	2,489	27	11.07	00:48:38
The Age	2,349	33	10.26	01:11:16
Yahoo!7 News Websites	1,960	21	7.87	00:33:19
Herald Sun	1,907	16	7.02	00:36:25
The Guardian	1,900	14	6.00	00:39:43
The Daily Telegraph	1,716	13	6.29	00:29:46