While Apple was the eighth-ranked US website in May 2011 in terms of unique audience, it had the highest month-over-month unique audience growth rate (5.7%) of any of top 10 sites, according to data from The Nielsen Company. Apple recorded about 63 million unique visitors in May 2011.
Google had the largest unique audience for the month, about 155 million, which was a 3.1% improvement on its April 2011 total.
Facebook Dominates in Average Time per Person
Facebook, ranked second in unique audience, dominated other sites in terms of average time spent per person during May, with the average Facebook user visiting the site for six hours, 20 minutes and 55 seconds. Yahoo came in a distant second with average user time of two hours, eight minutes and 26 seconds. No other site in the top 10 approached the two-hour mark.
Although it clearly outpaced its rivals in average time per user, Facebook still lost 0.8% of its April 2011 average time per user total. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing had the largest rate of loss (5.6%), while Microsoft increased its time per person 6%.
Internet Use Rises 3% MOM
More than 200 million Americans used their PCs in May 2011, and overall internet use was up 2.8% from April. US consumers also visited more unique sites (2.5%) compared to the previous month, and spent more time online on average (0.8%) in May. Internet access continues to grow during the month, with an estimated 246 million individuals in the US having accessing to the internet through home/work computers in May 2011.
Facebook Grows Audience 12% YOY
Nielsen data shows Facebook increased its audience from May 2010 roughly 12%, growing from 125 million users and jumping from fourth to second place. Google held onto the top position but lost close to 4% of its audience, dropping from 160.8 million viewers.
Microsoft, meanwhile, saw a dramatic 38% year-over-year drop in its unique audience, which stood at 136.8 million in May 2010.
