Portable devices drive record BBC Sport traffic
January 7, 2014
BBC Sport saw record online traffic from mobile and tablet devices over the festive period, accounting for a record 72 per cent of total UK BBC Sport traffic on Boxing Day and 70 per cent on New Year’s Day.
Mobiles contributed over 3 million unique browsers on Boxing Day – breaking the 3-million milestone for the first time – before setting a new record on New Year’s Day with 3.1 million unique browsers. Tablets also set a record of 1.3 million unique browsers on Boxing Day before passing the 1.5 million barrier for the first time on New Year’s Day. In addition, the BBC Sport app for mobile and tablet devices has now been downloaded over 3 million times across iOS, Android and Kindle Fire.
This helped drive BBC Sport’s highest number of UK daily unique browsers outside of the London 2012 Olympic Games across four screens (PCs, tablets, mobiles and connected TVs). BBC Sport received 6.6 million unique browsers on New Year’s Day, beating the previous non-Olympics record of 6.5 million when Andy Murray won his 2013 Wimbledon semi-final. In addition, total weekly traffic over the festive period (December 25th –January 1st) was up 23 per cent year-on-year.
Chris Condron, Head of Product for BBC Sport, says: “These figures highlight just how essential hand-held devices have become to our audiences. We’ve seen this trend grow throughout the year, culminating in record figures over the festive period when tablets and mobiles are a popular gift in many homes across the UK. We’ll continue to iterate and improve our digital services throughout a massive year of sport in 2014, making sure people get the best possible experience on any device they want, wherever they want.”