Harry Potter Site is Tops

The official Harry Potter website has emerged as the most visited movie site in Britain for October 2001. New data from NetValue now estimates that a third of a million home users visited the site, and did so prior to the actual release of the film in the UK.

The rankings clearly demonstrate the phenomenal success of Harry Potter online. Britons are recorded as having flocked to harrypotter.warnerbros.co.uk last month like never before. NetValue had pinned the level of visits down to 310,000 unique home Internet users. Fans also spent an average of 18.2 minutes viewing the official website.

The data also reveals that, somewhat surprisingly, only 20% of the site's visitors were aged 14 and under. In fact, two fifths of them were aged between 35-49 whilst over half (57%) were women. The popularity of Harry Potter has also contributed to the surge in visitors to other film sites, up from 1.7 million unique visitors in September to 2.1 million in October. NetValue has suggested that this underlines the importance of a popular and vibrant website in the promotion of new films.

In comparison to other film websites, Harry Potter is a true blockbuster. The Star Wars' official website experienced 165,000 visitors in the UK, while other big title releases, including Pokemon, Jurassic Park III, Shrek and Lord of the Rings, all experienced significantly less hits.

Other NetValue data for October 2001 reveals good news for British retailer, tesco.com, which has entered the top 25 most visited domains for the first time. Over 1 million unique users visited the retailer during the month, a level equating to 9 percent of all UK home Internet users.

All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.

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