MSN, Google, Skype, Yahoo, iTunes and YouTube revealed as truly global online brands
Cross-border research identifies major international online players
London, Tuesday 15 December 2009 – New global research from leading agency GfK Technology has identified MSN, Google, Skype, Yahoo, iTunes and YouTube as truly global online brands, following a survey of 8,000 internet users in five countries looking at usage patterns across a range of communication, information and entertainment services.
The ‘Connected Life’ study; carried out in China, France, Germany, UK and the USA, found that despite considerable fragmentation in providers across such services; these six brands are prevalent internationally.
MSN dominates Instant Messaging, appearing in the top three across all countries surveyed for the IM service they ‘use most often’. Skype enjoys similar dominance in VOIP – the top provider in four of the five countries, and third in China. Yahoo is the winner for branded email internationally – appearing in the list of top three providers in China, UK and the USA.
In location services Google has a stranglehold globally - making the top three by popularity amongst consumers in all five countries; first in the UK and Germany, second in China and the USA, and third in France - behind Mappy and Via Michelin respectively.
The online music market reveals a similar trend, with one clear winner – iTunes – number one in all of the five countries except China. The most popular music service in China is Baidu MP3, with almost half of Chinese internet users regularly visiting. This is due in part to the fact that piracy in the country is a significant issue.
YouTube is inevitably the dominant force in online video globally, ranking second in the UK and third in France in usage of On-Demand TV. YouTube is also prevalent in online community video globally, where it ranks first in the UK, France and Germany. The brand generally dominates its markets in the US; but has no presence in China – where video is dominated by CCTV and YouKu.
Other brands beginning to make their mark internationally are Facebook and Amazon; but their absolute dominance in some markets is not yet replicated internationally. Last.fm and Napster also make several appearances in the usage lists but with much lower numbers.
Finally, the survey goes on to reveal a marked prevalence in the usage of fixed line and mobile operator branded services for email, IM and social networking in France. In Germany the three most popular email providers are all local; similarly in China where local providers top the list of email, IM, VOIP and social networking services.
Babita Earle, Divisional Director of GfK Technology comments:
"While there remains considerable fragmentation in terms of the number of providers across these services internationally we can see some real global players emerging. That said there still exists opportunities for smaller brands to make their mark with specialist services and challenge the established providers with some healthy competition.”
Richard Morland