July 2022 Digital Market Overview

Welcome to the July 2022 Digital Market Overview. Using UKOM approved data from Ipsos iris, which launched in 2021, the DMO provides a top-line snapshot of the UK population’s online behaviour across pcs, tablets and smartphones.

Average time online per day by city

Key insights this month include:

Of all those who used the internet in July, 45% used a computer or laptop, 96% a smartphone and 23% a tablet device. Among those aged over 65, tablet reach was much higher at 34%.
UK internet users spend on average 3hrs 32mins per day online - this is higher among younger audiences and females. Average time spent also varies by region. For example, among major UK cities, Glasgow and Cardiff have higher than average time online per day (3hrs 51min) whilst Birmingham’s time is lower (3hrs 24 mins).
Smartphones drive up average time online in households with young children. Smartphone users without kids use their phones for 2.5 hours a day on average but among parents with children aged 0-5, this rises to over 3 hours.
Unsurprisingly given the Women’s Euros final, Wimbledon and the Commonwealth games, the category which showed the biggest uplift between May and July was sports which increased its audience by over 2 million. The energy/utilities category continued to attract more visitors (+ 1.3m v May) and the rise in covid cases resulted in an additional 1.1million for the health category, driven by the NHS Covid-19 app.
Top 20 organisations and brands for audience reach remain consistent. Alphabet, Meta and Amazon continue to be the top 3 organisations with Google, Facebook and YouTube being the top 3 brands.
For time online, the BBC replaces Amazon to join Meta and Alphabet in the top 3 organisations in July. Snap, ByteDance (TikTok), Twitter and Netflix are all in the top 10 for minutes but not for audience.
Given the cost-of-living crisis, Ipsos iris can provide useful insight into consumer’s changing behaviour. Audience for the SVOD mobile apps was down by 4% between January and July with nearly all the top players witnessing decreases – the exception being Disney (up by 29%). Vinted, the pre-loved clothing app continues to grow (up by 27%) as people look to buy second hand and/or make themselves some extra money. Services providing locations of cheap petrol such as Petrolprices, Petrolmap and Gasbuddy have grown usage– over 4 million visited these services in July, up from only 1.2m in January. Martin Lewis’s Money Saving Expert site continues to be popular - on days when the money saving tips email gets sent out the daily audience surpasses 3 million.