HITWISE UK RETAIL AND HOT PRODUCTS UPDATE

Nintendo Wii more popular than both Apple iPod and iPhone this Christmas

London, Wednesday 5^th December Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, today revealed that the Nintendo Wii was the most searched for product by UK Internet shoppers during November. There were thirteen as many UK Internet searches for ‘nintendo wii’ sending traffic to the Hitwise Shopping and Classifieds category as there were for ‘apple ipod’, and over twice as many searches for ‘wii’ as for both ‘ipod’ and ‘iphone’. Despite shortages of the popular console in the UK, the volume of searches for ‘nintendo wii’ has increased 158% since November 2006, while searches for ‘wii’ have increased by 278%.

Top 10 product searches sending traffic to the Hitwise Shopping and Classifieds category, two weeks ending 1^st December 2007, based on UK Internet usage.

Robin Goad, Director of Research at Hitwise commented: "The Nintendo Wii is hugely popular this year, accounting for six in every ten searches for a games console. The popularity of the Wii and the Nintendo DS mean that there were more searches for Nintendo products in November than Apple products. This is despite the significant increases in searches for both the iPod and the iPhone, which is currently the most searched for mobile phone in the UK."

Unfortunately for UK consumers, there is still a Wii shortage in the UK. As a result, a number of sites specifically dedicated to sourcing the console have already appeared and are proving popular. The most successful of these, http://wii-consoles.co.uk, was the 58^th most visited Shopping and Classifieds website in the UK in November, having increased its market share by 265% during the month.

Discount vouchers prove a success 

The publicity surrounding real and fake discount shopping vouchers helped ‘vouchers’ to become one of the top 10 fastest moving search terms sending traffic to retail websites, with searches for the term reaching a two year high last week. One company that benefited was Thresher Group (http://www.threshergroup.com), which saw traffic to its website increase by 240% in the week ending 24^th November 2007 – the week that its 40%-off Christmas voucher swept the internet. Discount shopping vouchers can be an effective form of viral marketing, and email plays an extremely important role in spreading the message. Selfridges (http://www.selfridges.co.uk) was another retailer that recently ran a successful voucher campaign, and the amount of traffic it received from Email Services tripled for the week ending 1^st December 2007 – the week that its 20% off voucher was released.

Fashion retailers have also benefited from the craze, with a number of high-street and online brands, including Gap, Whistles and Oki-Ni issuing discount vouchers. The Hitwise Shopping and Classifieds - Apparel and Accessories category experienced a 19% year on year increase in UK visits between November 2006 and 2007. This growth has been driven by an improved online presence from the major high street brands, as well as the continued popularity of Ugg boots. Searches for the winter boot have increased by 158% since November 2006, and they were the third most searched for product sending traffic to Shopping and Classifieds sites during November.

UK Internet searches for 'vouchers', December 2005 - December 2007

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,400 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise's patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behaviour of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise, a subsidiary of Experian (FTS: EXPN) www.experiangroup.com operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up-to-date-analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at http://weblogs.hitwise.com and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Jannie Cahill

jannie.cahill@hitwise.com

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