Facebook's popularity drive continues in UK

Facebook’s rapid rise in popularity among UK web users continued in May, according to measurement group comScore.

The figures show the social network had 4.8m visitors, 30% up from April and 2123% from May last year. It was the site's third consecutive month of 30%+ gains, comScore said.

Google maintained its position as the UK’s most-visited web property, attracting almost 28m visitors – 89% of UK web users of 15 or older. Second-placed Microsoft had 27.4m visitors, a reach of 87%.

comScore also said sites’ rankings had been affected by various seasonal factors:

• Travel planning for May’s bank holidays saw holiday sites making strong gains, including Priceline.com (up 17% from April to 3m visitors); First Choice Holidays (16% to 2.8m); EasyGroup (15% to 3.6m) and TUI Group (13% to 4.3m).
• The Weather Channel was the UK’s fastest growing property, up 36% to 2.4m UK visitors.
• The new series of Big Brother saw Channel 4’s visitors increase by 31% to 4.4m.
• The launch of Kate Moss’ fashion line helped Arcadia Group increase its visitors by 17% to 2.7m.
• Seasonal shopping drove traffic to shopping comparison group Ciao Sites, Karstadt-Quelle, Marks & Spencer and Play.com.

comScore added that the Guardian’s redesign helped it record a 14% visitor rise in May, while BSkyB and Bebo also experienced the strongest growth.

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