Anyway, it’s also that day that we like to share some readership statistics with you for the year just gone. Readership continues to grow, with over one million new unique visitors added, perhaps not surprising given some great products that Sony launched throughout the year.
Thank you all for visiting during 2014, it is sincerely appreciated by all that work on the site. The interaction and community is what drives us to keep the site going and providing relevant Sony Xperia news. Here’s to an exciting 2015 for all Xperia fans.
If you have any tips or just want to get in touch, the absolute best way is to use the Tip Us link at the top of the site. Whilst we do monitor our social media pages regularly, tips through the contact page hit our inboxes instantly.
2014 Xperia Blog readership statistics
We would like to share some readership statistics that shows the progress we have made during 2014, thanks to all of our readers. In 2014 XperiaBlog.net had 20.9 million pageviews and 5.3 million unique visitors.
Top countries by readership
In terms of where our readers are from, India cements the number one position. Overall, 12% of our readers are from India – significantly ahead of any other country. The United States has leapfrogged the UK to take the number two slot with 7% of our readership. We were surprised to see such a strong showing from Indonesia, who now takes up number 4, an increase of three places. Others in the top 15 remain in the same including Germany, France and Sweden, which keep their positions from last year. There also remains a strong showing from Malaysia, Philippines, Russia and Taiwan.
New countries that entered the top 15 include Poland which climbed twelve places to number 9, Brazil (up seven places to number 12) and Turkey (up one place to number 15). The three countries to drop out of last year’s top 15 were Thailand, Singapore and Italy. As always, it’s great to see Xperia Blog being read in all corners of the globe.
Readership by Mobile Devices
Up until 2014, Xperia Blog was primarily read on the desktop. You can see in the chart below that 2013’s statistics show 89% of our readers were on the desktop. However, the move to mobile shows that this desktop number dropped to 73% in 2014. Readership on mobile devices increased from 8% in 2013 to 21% in 2014. Tablets only saw a small increase from 4% in 2013 to 6% in 2014.
We are dedicated to all things Sony Xperia, but we continue to attract readership from a number of different devices as can be seen below. The result of this chart really surprised us. If you click here to find the same chart for 2013’s statistics, you will notice how readership between Sony and Apple devices were pretty much neck-and-neck. That has completely changed over the last 12 months.
Whilst traffic across all of the mobile devices below has increased year-on-year, traffic from Sony devices significantly outpaced any other device. Hardly, a big surprise given the content of the blog, but as mentioned earlier, this wasn’t always the case. It seems that more and more of you are accessing the site via your Xperia phones which is great.
Whilst readership from Apple devices only grew 11%, it comfortably held onto second place. Our readership from Samsung devices leapfrogged Google ones to take third position. The rise in readers from Samsung devices saw the biggest year-on-year increase at +262% (excluding the year-on-year growth from Sony devices).
Readership by Browser
Chrome continues to be the most popular browser to access the site. You can see the data below from 2012 to 2014, which shows Chrome accounting for 58.4% of visits in 2014 (up from 45.6% in 2012). Firefox remains the second favourite, with 17.8% of visits in 2014, although it has been on a downward trend for a while. In fact all of the other browsers, including Internet Explorer and Safari, saw a muted performance apart from Opera, which has seen an increase in visits.
Most read stories in 2014 (by number of Pageviews)
The following posts were the most read during 2014. The top post of the year was our review of Sony’s Android 4.4.2 KitKat firmware build. The second most popular post was related to cracked displays and which ones Sony are likely to repair. The third most popular post of the year was our exclusive look at the Xperia Z2 firmware before the phone had launched.
FlashTool continues to be one of the most important pieces of software available for Sony Xperia owners, therefore it was no surprise to see two posts relating to FlashTool in the Top 10. Another popular post (#5 on the list) related to the SD card restrictions within Android KitKat. One of the big surprises for us was to see that our Link2SD guide, written in December 2011, was still one of the most popular posts in 2014 (#6 on the list).
1. Xperia Android 4.4.2 KitKat firmware (14.3.A.0.681) review
2. Sony will repair certain cracked displays for Xperia Z series suggests leaked info
3. Exclusive sneak peek at the Xperia KitKat UI for the Sony D6503 ‘Sirius’
4. FlashTool version 0.9.18.1 allows you to download Xperia firmware files
5. Before upgrading to KitKat, be wary of SD card restrictions
6. Link2SD guide – never worry about internal memory limits again
7. Xperia Z2 in low-light shootout against HTC One M8 and Galaxy S5
8. Big Album (6.0.A.0.26) and WALKMAN (8.3.A.0.2) update hits Xperia handsets
9. Flashtool updated to version 0.9.15.0 – brings support to 2014 Sony Xperia devices
10. Xperia M Android 4.3 update now rolling (15.4.A.0.23)
Social Media
For us it is important that you can access our content by whichever means suits you. As things stand you can subscribe to our feeds on RSS or via email (sign up in the box on the sidebar). We also have feeds of all the major social media players. As a measure of posterity, we include our follower counts below as at 31st December 2014.
Facebook page likes: 22,282 [+38% over the prior year]
Google+ page followers: 56,915 [+312% over the prior year]
Twitter follower count: 50,430 [+73% over the prior year]
