Nearly 25 Percent of Japanese Internet Users Accessed iTunes in August, According to comScore World Metrix

Nearly 25 Percent of Japanese Internet Users Accessed iTunes in August, According to comScore World Metrix

Yahoo! Music Ranks as Japan's Most Visited Music Site

TOKYO, Nov. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a study of music-related sites in Japan finding that nearly 40 percent of the Japanese online population visited an entertainment music site in August. The study also revealed that Japan recorded the highest penetration of users of Apple iTunes software during the month, when compared with the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

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"The Internet and other digital media have become key platforms for music consumption and clearly represent the future of the music industry," said Maru Sato, managing director of comScore Japan. "With so much consumer music activity occurring in the digital space today, it is increasingly important to capture the available audience now and get them engaged with your service."

Yahoo! Music Leads Music Category in Audience Size

In August, nearly 40 percent of the online population in Japan visited an entertainment music site, averaging 16 minutes per visit and nearly 5 visits per visitor during the month. Yahoo! Music led the category with 7.3 million visitors, followed by Sony Connect with nearly 3 million visitors and Sony BMG Music Entertainment with 2.7 million visitors.

Top 10 Entertainment Music Sites in Japan*
August 2008
Total Japan Internet Audience, Age 15+ - Home and Work Locations*
Source: comScore World Metrix
Total Average Average
Unique Minutes Visits
Visitors per per
(000) Visitor Visitor
Total Internet : Total Audience 57,356 1,049.1 38.3
Entertainment - Music 21,915 15.8 4.9
Yahoo! Music 7,340 14.8 4.9
Sony Connect 2,921 N/A N/A
Sony BMG Music Entertainment 2,673 4.5 2.4
UTAMAP.COM 2,341 7.0 2.3
Goo Music 1,471 4.2 1.6
UTA-NET.COM 1,391 2.8 2.2
MORA.JP 1,388 13.3 2.1
MORAWIN.JP 1,375 5.3 1.9
AOL Music 1,238 0.7 0.3
NEOWING.CO.JP 1,234 1.2 1.3

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access
from mobile phones or PDAs.

Select Music Download Sites Reveal Intensity of Users' Engagement

comScore analyzed a selected group of music download sites in Japan, examining the visitation and engagement at each site. Mora.jp had the largest audience among the group with 1.39 million visitors, closely followed by Morawin.jp with 1.38 million visitors.

Although Napster, which operates on a fixed monthly fee, reported a smaller number of visitors compared to the other sites with 171,000 visitors in August, the site reported the highest engagement (93 minutes per visitor) and highest frequency of visitation among users (4.4 average visits per visitor). Indie music site Muzie.co.jp also reported high engagement among its user base, with an average of 21 minutes per visit and 4.1 visits per visitor.

Selected Music Download Sites in Japan*
August 2008
Total Japan Internet Audience, Age 15+ - Home and Work Locations*
Source: comScore World Metrix
Total Average Average
Unique Minutes Visits
Visitors per per
(000) Visitor Visitor
Total Internet : Total Audience 57,356 1,049.1 38.3
MORA.JP 1,388 13.3 2.1
MORAWIN.JP 1,375 5.3 1.9
MUSICO.JP 1,055 4.8 1.8
ONGEN.NET 320 7.2 1.3
MUZIE.CO.JP 187 21.3 4.1
Napster 171 93.0 4.4

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access
from mobile phones or PDAs.

Japan Doubles the Global Online Penetration of iTunes Software Users

One of the most popular digital music applications in the marketplace today is Apple iTunes, which interfaces with the Apple iPod and iPhone and provides digital music downloads. In August, there were 13.6 million iTunes software users in Japan, representing nearly one quarter of the Japanese Internet audience. Among the five countries included in the study, Japan had the highest penetration of iTunes software users and more than double the worldwide reach of 11.2 percent.

iTunes Software Application
Penetration by Selected Countries
August 2008
Total Internet Audience, Age 15+ - Home and Work Locations*
Source: comScore World Metrix
iTunes Software (App)
Total
Unique
% Users
Reach (000)
Worldwide 11.2 107,161
Japan 23.7 13,590
United Kingdom 23.4 8,317
United States 19.6 31,729
France 12.4 4,002
Germany 10.7 3,779

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access
from mobile phones or PDAs.

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit http://www.comscore.com/boilerplate

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Source: comScore, Inc.

CONTACT: Sarah Radwanick of comScore, +1-312-775-6538,
press@comscore.com

Web site: http://www.comscore.com/

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