Sanoma Corporation, Press Release, 23 January 2013 at 12:20 CET+1
In 2012, Finns increasingly started accessing online services through mobile equipment. At the same time, the Nokia Lumia became more popular than Android, and reached the popularity of the iPhone.
These are some of the findings of the analysis of user data collected from Sanoma's online services in the Finnish language. According to TNS Atlas, Sanoma's services reach 85 per cent of Finland’s online users. Therefore, it is possible to make quite precise conclusions from the behaviour and device base of Finns on the basis of the user data of the services.
The share of mobile equipment in the use of all online services in 2012 increased very rapidly. A total of 15% of website visits was via mobile equipment. At the same time, mobile users spent more time on the websites and they accessed a higher number of pages, so at the end of 2012, as many as 35% of page loading was from mobile equipment, whereas the corresponding figure at the start of 2012 was 10%.
Sanoma mobile services are accessed to a particularly frequent extent on business days from 6 a.m. - 7 a.m. and from 9 p.m. to midnight when Finns read news and weather services.
News sites in particular were popular among mobile users, and the mobile versions of news services broke their visitor records. The Ilta-Sanomat mobile service, accessed by one smartphone user in three every week, was the most popular mobile website in Finland. In the record-breaking week (week 37), the service was accessed by 686,000 unique visitors. The highest number of visitors to the Helsingin Sanomat mobile service was 597,000 (week 47).
”Ilta-Sanomat is heavily investing in the development of the mobile website and apps because our visitors want to read news on their mobile devices. In 2012, the weekly number of pages viewed on mobile devices increased from less than five million to more than 21 million," says Timo Rinne, Commercial Director of Ilta-Sanomat online.
”Advertisers also really discovered mobile and tablet advertising in 2012 and we are confident that mobile advertising will grow rapidly this year. The diverse opportunities of the HS iPad app particularly appealed to advertisers. The HS iPad app has already been downloaded to nearly 100,000 devices," says Petteri Putkiranta, Business Director of Helsingin Sanomat.
At the end of 2012, Sanoma had more than 90 mobile apps or sites customised for mobile devices. Sanoma also introduced several innovative and interesting types of advertising for mobile devices.
Nokia is a favourite among Finns
The visitor statistics of Sanoma online services also indicate changes in the popularity of mobile devices. It seems that Finns really embraced Nokia Lumia last year.
”Sanoma's network and number of mobile visitors indicates that the total traffic from Lumia phones exceeded that from Android phones in the summer and it also reached the traffic level of the iPhone at year-end," says Anders Stenbäck, Director of Sanoma's digital partnerships.
In the autumn, Sanoma and Nokia launched co-operation through which new Lumia phones have Helsingin Sanomat and Ilta-Sanomat apps pre-installed.
"The co-operation with Nokia has been productive and it has also clearly increased the number of users of our Windows apps. Finland still remains Nokialand,” says Stenbäck.
Sources: Weekly visitor volumes TNS Metrix; Visits and pages loaded: Sanoma-internal measuring; Other: TNS Gallup: ”Finnish smartphone users in 2012”.
Additional information
Timo Rinne, Commercial Director, Online, Ilta-Sanomat, email timo.rinne@iltasanomat.fi, tel. +358 40 571 3634
Petteri Putkiranta, Business Director, Helsingin Sanomat, petteri.putkiranta@hs.fi, tel. +358 40 550 1551
Anders Stenbäck, Digital Partnership Director, Sanoma, email anders.stenback@sanoma.com, tel. +358 50 548 2234
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Sanoma inspires, informs and connects. Sanoma is a leading European group with a focus on consumer media and learning. We bring information, experiences, education and entertainment to millions of people every day. We employ nearly 11,000 professionals in some 20 countries. In 2011, the Group’s restated net sales totalled EUR 2.4 billion. Sanoma shares are listed on the NASDAQ OMX Helsinki.