Happy New Year to all of our readers. We choose this opportunity to reflect on XperiaBlog.net’s progress over the last year and share some 2013 readership stats. We previously described 2013 as being a breakthrough year for Sony – as interest in Sony Xperia devices have increased, so has interest in our site. We added over one million new unique visitors during the year, with overall unique visitors growing by 37% versus the prior year.
Thank you to all of our new and regular readers who visited us in 2013. The community is the lifeblood of this site, whether that involves participating in discussions or sending us tips. We appreciate all of your feedback, so if you would like to get in touch about anything please use the Tip Us link at the top. We hope you’ll continue to join us for what promises to be a fantastic ride in 2014.
2013 Xperia Blog readership statistics
We would like to share some readership statistics that shows the progress we have made during 2013, thanks to all of our readers. In 2013 XperiaBlog.net had 17.5 million pageviews and 4.1 million unique visitors, not bad for a niche Android blog.
Top countries by readership
Our top-three countries by readership continues to be from India, the United Kingdom and United States. India is by far the largest with 10% of the audience followed by the UK with 6% and the US closely behind. Many of the other countries in the top 15 are largely the same as last year with a mix of European and Asian countries. Two new entrants in the top 15 include Taiwan at number 11 and Australia at number 15. The two regions to drop out of the top 15 include Japan, which surprised us given that our Sony focus is Japan’s home land, and Hong Kong. As always, it’s great to see our site being read in all corners of the globe.
Readership by Mobile Devices
Despite people forecasting the decline of the desktop, it still remains the most popular medium to consume this site. Desktop visits accounted for 89% of all visits, with the remainder made by mobile and tablet devices.
Xperia Blog continues to be a niche Android blog dedicated to all things Sony Xperia, but we continue to attract readership from a number of different devices as can be seen below. We had almost as many people reading our site on Apple devices as those that do on Sony devices. Other manufacturers that make the top five include Google Nexus devices, as well as Samsung and Nokia handsets.
Readership by Browser
Chrome remains by far and away the most popular browser that people accessed this site from in 2013. Chrome accounted for 54% of visits, up from 46% last year. All other browsers saw their share drop with Firefox down from 26% in 2012 to 22% in 2013 and Internet Explorer down from 11% in 2012 to 9% in 2013.
Most read stories in 2013 (by number of Pageviews)
The following posts were the most read during 2013. The top post of the year was our guide to installing Jelly Bean on the Xperia S. It is fascinating to see that our Link2SD guide, written two years ago, was the second most popular post in 2013. It shows how many people have struggled with low memory restrictions on older Android phones generally, not just Sony phones.
1. Install Jelly Bean to your Xperia S using Flashtool [Tutorial]
2. Link2SD guide – never worry about internal memory limits again
3. New Sony Xperia home launcher (version 5.1.S.0.0) leaks
4. New firmware (10.1.1.A.1.253) rolling out for Xperia Z
5. New Jelly Bean firmware certified for Xperia S [6.2.B.0.211]
6. Sony Xperia Z1 photo samples through different firmware revisions
7. Some Xperia Z handsets dropping dead; Sony says a fix is coming
8. Xperia S Jelly Bean update now rolling out
9. Xperia Z camera samples against the iPhone 5 & Oppo Find 5
10. Sony ‘Honami’ system dump reveals new UI and imaging specs (20MP camera, 4K video)
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 2013.
Facebook page likes: 16,111 [+93% over the prior year]
Google+ page circles: 13,822 [+218% over the prior year]
Twitter follower count: 29,113 [+136% over the prior year]
