The average UK Internet user spent 36.2 hours online and made 73.2 visits in July, but heavy internet users spent almost three times more time online in July - 99.4 hours - and made more than twice as many visits as the national average, according to comScore (via MarketingCharts).
The data were released on the occasion of the UK launch of the comScore Segment Metrix analytical tool, which enables segmentation analyses of comScore's behavior database. The first segmentation to be offered is the comScore Segment Metrix H/M/L, which analyzes online activity by heavy, medium and light internet users of specific categories of sites.
The Heavy segment is defined as the top 20 percent of consumers, based on time spent online at specific site categories; the Medium group is defined as the middle 30 percent; and the Light users are the remainder.
Though segments are differentiated by the volume of online content they consume, there are also significant differences in the types of sites that Heavy and Light internet users visits, comScore said.
Light users spend a disproportionately high percentage of their time online on banking, finance and travel sites.
Heavy users spend an above-average proportion of their time on communication, gaming, and entertainment categories.
Light users index at 228 points for time spent on sites in the online banking category, against the total Internet index of 100. For Heavy Internet users, time spent on online banking sites is relatively low, at 54 index points.
In the case of the Instant Messengers category, that trend is reversed: Heavy Internet users index at 128 points, and Light users at 43.
comScore Segment Metrix offers H/M/L segmentation data for 113 categories and sub-categories, including Business/Finance (with 7 sub-categories), Career Development (4), Community (7), Directories/Resources (7), Education (2), Entertainment (9), Gambling (3), Games (3), Government, Health (3), Hobbies (4), ISP, News/Information (4), Portals, Real Estate, Regional/Local, Retail (21), Search/Navigation, Services (11), Sports, Technology (2), Telecommunications, and Travel (8).
