New daily data from Ipsos iris provides fascinating insights into website and app performance on specific dates. The majority of the top 100 websites and apps saw their audiences drop on Christmas Day, as one might expect, but there were exceptions. UKOM picks out some of the star performers by comparing usage to the same day the week before.
The BBC Good Food website was one of the biggest websites to buck the trend as people sought advice on how to cook their annual festive dinner. It had 1.96 million visitors on Christmas Day - a weekly increase of 74% (+827K). Jamieoliver.com also entered the top 100 after increasing its audience by 142%.
Judging by the audience growth to the Radio Times website (+52%), some people were looking to sit down and watch some television after dinner whilst others were hoping to win £15 million by doing the lottery. The ‘must win’ jackpot attracted an additional 430K players to the National Lottery app on Christmas Day, an increase of 45% compared to the week before.
Unsurprisingly, messenger services all performed well as people shared Seasons Greetings and/or moaned about their relatives - WhatsApp added the biggest audience of all, over 20 million used the messaging service on Christmas Day – an increase of 1.75m (+10%) week on week. Facebook Messenger (+8%), Discord (+10%) and Signal (+40%) all attracted users over the festive period. Photo apps were also popular on the day with Google Photos (+26%) and Amazon Photos (+16%) both recording double digit audience growth.
Perhaps more of a surprise was the interest in officialcharts.com on Christmas Day. 284,000 visited the site to see that LadBaby had scored 2021’s Christmas no. 1 with charity track Sausage Rolls for Everyone featuring Ed Sheeran and Elton John. This was up from only 54,000 the week before – a staggering 426% increase.
Finally, a couple of others worth mentioning are Amazon Alexa and Nintendo - over 2 million people used Alexa’s mobile app on Christmas Day, an increase of 37% compared to the previous week and Nintendo’s website audience almost quadrupled (+385%). Maybe Santa had delivered some Echo Dots and Switches the night before?
Whilst some people looked to see if they could grab a bargain in the Christmas Sales on December 25th, 26th December was the peak date for most of the retailers over Christmas, so look out for an analysis on Boxing Day from UKOM next week.
Notes on data:
Source: Ipsos MORI, Ipsos iris Online Audience Measurement Service, Daily Data, Dec 2021 and Jan 2022. All data is based on the top 100 daily websites and the top 100 daily mobile apps on Christmas Day 2021.
Base = all aged 15+ years using PC/laptop, smartphone or tablet device(s).
