Nielsen//NetRatings is Launched in South Africa; Local Properties Vie With Global Brands for Sizable Audience Share.

Business/Technology Editors

STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 30, 2001

Nielsen//NetRatings, the world's fastest-growing Internet audience measurement service, today published its first data on the at-home surfing behavior of Internet users in South Africa.

These inaugural findings show that in June, local South African Web properties made a strong showing against well-established global Internet brands, accounting for nearly half the top 10 properties.

Nielsen//NetRatings tracks the entire spectrum of Internet user behavior: who's online, where they're going, what ads they're viewing and clicking on and how much time they spend. This information is derived from randomly selected consumer panels of home Internet users, continually refreshed to reflect the most current Internet universe. South Africa is the first African market measured by Nielsen//NetRatings, which is now reporting data on 27 countries worldwide. Nielsen//NetRatings plans to begin measuring Internet activity from work in South Africa later this year.

Richard Basil-Jones, managing director, Middle East & Africa for ACNielsen eRatings.com, said: "By providing Internet audience measurement for the important South African market, we are pleased to extend our industry-leading coverage to 27 countries around the world. As a global service with true consistency of information, Nielsen//NetRatings will enable easy comparison of data for South Africa with data from other countries."

"Nielsen//NetRatings provides the South African market with an exciting opportunity to have access to the leading global currency of Internet measurement," said Sue Bolton, sales and marketing director in South Africa for ACNielsen eRatings.com. "Nielsen//NetRatings will provide this market with the first consistent measurement of local Internet activity. With this information, our clients can effectively target markets and evaluate costs."

The list of the most popular Web properties in South Africa in June was split between global Web brands and local financial services, portals, search engines and community sites (see Table 1).

      Table 1 Nielsen//NetRatings:
         Top 10 Properties, South Africa, At-Home, June 2001

                      Rank     Unique     Reach    Time      Rank By
     Property      By Unique  Audience    (%        per    Page Views
                    Audience            Active)   Person

       MSN             1       323,569   47.25    0:21:45      2

   M-Web Portal        2       250,311   36.56    0:28:22      3

      Yahoo!           3       245,414   35.84    0:26:47      1

    Absa Bank          4       215,366   31.45    0:17:34      4

    Microsoft          5       203,817   29.77    0:05:10      11

Johnnic e-Ventures     6       137,716   20.11    0:12:31      7

 AOL Time Warner       7       107,315   15.67    0:13:58      8

  Lycos Network        8       103,426   15.10    0:07:45      14

     Tiscali           9       80,837    11.81    0:07:27      18

   iafrica.com         10      80,027    11.69    0:10:26      15

Source:  Nielsen//NetRatings

"In nearly every country where Nielsen//NetRatings has launched its service, we see global power players MSN, Yahoo! and Microsoft at the top of the Web properties list," Bolton said. "This is due to their successful strategy of providing localized content in each country. However, South Africa shows a strong loyalty to local players as well, as evidenced by the high rankings for Absa Bank, the M-Web Portal, iafrica.com and the Johnnic group, whose Ananzi Search Engine is devoted to South African Web sites."

Bolton also noted that during June 2001, the most visited categories of sites in South Africa were search engines and portals, finance, insurance and investment sites and telecom and Internet services sites. "The high ranking for Absa Bank in June is indicative of the strength of the finance category in South Africa," Bolton said. "Marketers looking to target consumers in this category are on target if they're advertising on the Web."

Average Usage

During June 2001, 1,499,000 people in South Africa had access to the Internet from their household PC. During that month, the average connection time per person was four hours and 32 minutes (see Table 2). "Monthly Internet usage in South Africa is similar in most respects to the global averages, with the exception of a fairly short amount of time spent online over the month - most likely a result of local Internet access charges," Bolton said. "In visiting 20 unique sites in June, South Africans were on the high side globally, which would indicate that our population is using its time online to learn the Web. Web properties who aggressively court the local audience now may win our surfers' loyalty and be rewarded as our market matures."

On average, South African Internet users connected 10 times per month in sessions lasting more than 26 minutes. Bolton pointed to the male bias in South Africa's Internet audience, which was 60% male and 40% female in June, as being indicative of an Internet market in the early stages of development. "Nielsen//NetRatings data for June shows the American and Canadian Internet audiences as the only Internet audiences in the world comprised of more females than males," she said. "Across the 27 countries measured by Nielsen//NetRatings, the demographic split in overseas surfing remains heavily weighted towards males, creating significant opportunities for marketers targeting females. Another statistic common in newer Internet markets is a high click rate for ad banners, and in South Africa, our click rate of .65 on top banners was nearly double the click rates in the UK and US in June."

      Table 2- Nielsen//NetRatings:
           Average usage, South Africa, At-Home, June 2001

                                 South Africa     UK          US

   Number of sessions per month       10          13          19

  Number of unique sites visited      20          18          10

  Page views per surfing session      28          38          36

       Time spent per month         4:32:18    5:58:53      9:44:52

 Time spent during surfing session   26:02      28:07        30:47

     Duration of a page viewed       00:57      00:44        00:51

Average click rate for top banners    .65        .26          .36

     Active Internet Universe       684,735   12,740,627  101,464,514

Current Internet Universe Estimate 1,499,172  23,375,121  167,138,270

  Source:  Nielsen//NetRatings

About Nielsen//NetRatings

Nielsen//NetRatings reports on Internet audiences and advertising in 27 countries worldwide, representing more than 91 percent of the global Internet audience universe. In addition to South Africa, the countries are: the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Brazil, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, South Korea, Taiwan, Israel and Mexico. The total estimated Internet audience universe in these countries is more than 414 million individuals.

Through strategic partnerships between NetRatings, Nielsen Media Research and ACNielsen, the Nielsen//NetRatings audience measurement service collects real-time data from more than 225,000 individuals with access to the Internet around the world.

Nielsen//NetRatings uses unique technology capable of measuring both Internet use and advertising to provide the most timely, accurate and comprehensive Internet usage data and advertising information in the global marketplace. Nielsen//NetRatings tracks the entire spectrum of Internet user behavior, leveraging proprietary data-collection technology from NetRatings, Nielsen Media Research's 50 years of expertise in research and audience measurement, and ACNielsen's international leadership in offering market research information covering more than 100 countries. For more information, please visit www.nielsen-netratings.com.

About ACNielsen eRatings.com

ACNielsen eRatings.com is a venture between ACNielsen and NetRatings Inc. (Nasdaq: NTRT). ACNielsen, a company of VNU N.V., is the world's leading market research firm, offering measurement and analysis of marketplace dynamics, consumer attitudes and behaviour, and new and traditional media in more than 100 countries. NetRatings is the leading provider of Internet audience measurement technology and analysis. Through the Nielsen//NetRatings service, ACNielsen eRatings.com is creating the first global service for tracking audiences, advertising and user activity on the Internet in more than 30 countries worldwide.

About NetRatings, Inc.

NetRatings (Nasdaq: NTRT) provides Internet audience measurement and analysis services that enable its customers to make informed decisions regarding their Internet strategies. NetRatings delivers accurate and timely information collected from a representative sample of Internet users and augments it with detailed, flexible reporting and in-depth analyses.