The biggest website winners in 2023 were retail shopping sites and apps but Open AI topped the list – Ipsos iris data

Australians increased their time spent online by 3.4% in December

22 January 2023 – The cost of living crisis in 2023 saw Australians flock to shopping websites and apps to hunt for value and convenience, with retail-related companies dominating audience growth in the top 100 consumer websites and apps in 2023, however Open AI, owners of ChatGPT, topped the list as consumers embraced AI technology, according to Ipsos iris data.

During 2023, the largest audience growth among the top 100 consumer websites and apps was on Open AI. This was followed by Temu, Mastercard, Shop App, Afterpay, Doordash, Big W, Dan Murphy’s, Target Australia and Woolworths’ gift cards.

The chart below shows audience growth of each of the Top 10 sites and apps for 2023 over the 12 month period.

In December, retail website and app audiences maintained the record highs reached in November.

Ipsos iris, Australia’s digital audience measurement currency endorsed by IAB Australia, showed that overall in December, Australians aged 14+ spent more than 3.8 hours a day online, up 3.4% on November and totalling 117 hours for the month.

The most consumed website and app categories in December were technology (21 million), social networking at 21 million, followed by search engines (20.9 million), retail and commerce (20.7 million) and entertainment (20.6 million).

Energy & Utilities was the fastest growing category in December, rising by 11.8% compared to November. December was the highest audience all year for the Events & Attractions category (up 7%) as Australians sought information about things to do over the Christmas/summer break, while the Games category (up 5.2%) also had its highest audience for the year in December.

Major global and local news events continued to fuel online reading of news sites. Weather events such as tropical cyclone Jasper, the deadly storms in Southeast Queensland, celebrity news including actor Matthew Perry’s autopsy results, broadcaster Alan Jones’s sex scandal accusations and the deaths of Bill Granger and Ryan O’Neil, plus the resignation of Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Bruce Lehrmann defamation trial against Network 10, the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, and HSC and VCE results saw almost 20.4 million people use a news website or app in December, slightly down on the peak news consumption month of November.

The news events in Queensland in December saw Queensland-based news websites and apps record significant audience increases compared to November, bucking the overall trend for news.

The News category includes audience and time spent online on both general news and broader news content including weather, sport, lifestyle, entertainment, and business news.

The chart below shows the News brands’ ranking during December 2023 by online audience size.

 Ipsos iris, which officially launched in March 2023, provides accurate data about the 21 million Australians aged 14+ who access a wide variety of digital content and services across smartphone, PC/laptop and tablet devices.

• Ipsos iris is an independent source of truth for the media industry providing a level playing field for comparison of audience reach and characteristics and supporting the $14.2 billion Australian online advertising market*.
• Ipsos iris provides accuracy in solving cross-device deduplication, the biggest challenge in measuring online audiences, using a single-source multi-device panel measuring activity on 8,000 smartphone, PC, laptop and tablet devices
• Ipsos iris provides accurate data about the number of people who visit the content of digital publishers and platforms, along with the frequency of visits and time spent by tracking digital audience behaviour across desktop/laptop, smartphone, and tablets.  It uses a hybrid methodology that combines metered data from a high quality, nationally representative, single-source passive panel with site-centric census measurement via media owner tagging.
• Later this year CTV audience currency integration from a data partnership with OzTAM will provide total unduplicated digital audience currency data for CTV, smartphones, tablets, and computers.
• Ipsos iris is fully privacy compliant and cross-media ready and will continue to evolve with a roadmap of enhancements over 2023 and beyond. It will also be adaptable to changing requirements as the industry develops in future years.
• The launch of Ipsos iris with monthly data from January 2023 was the culmination of extensive work by the IAB and its Measurement Council that commenced in early 2021 with a strategic review of industry requirements. Ipsos was awarded the IAB’s endorsement, having best met the standards on criteria across all areas of product along with criteria for operations and a future roadmap.
• Further information can be found at: https://iris-au.ipsos.com/

*Source: IAB Australia Online Advertising Expenditure Report (OAER FY23) prepared by PwC Australia.