We wanted to wish you all a Happy New Year and best wishes for 2016. We hope that the year ahead will be a stronger one for Sony Mobile, full of exciting products which are easily accessible to all that want them (yes, even for US Xperia fans).
Anyway, the New Year also marks our birthday and we are five today (Happy Birthday to us!), so thanks to all of our readers for sticking with us for so long. As has become a tradition for us, we use this opportunity to share some site statistics of the year just past.
We know there is much that we could improve on, but with a small team who also have ‘proper’ jobs, we have to sometimes make compromises on what we cover. We endeavour to continue coverage of all things Sony Xperia and find ways to expand content. If there are any suggestions you have for the site (nothing is too small), then please do not hesitate to leave any comments below or get in touch with us here.
As always, your tips are invaluable to us, making us aware of the latest Xperia-related news items, whether that is for firmware updates or rumours or something else entirely. Thank you for everyone that got in touch and please them coming into 2016.
2015 Xperia Blog readership statistics
We would like to share some readership statistics that shows the progress we have made during 2015, thanks to all of our readers. In 2015 XperiaBlog.net had 25.8 million pageviews and 5.6 million unique visitors.
Top countries by readership
When looking at where most of our readers are from, the top three countries remain the same as last year. India takes top spot with 11%, slightly lower than last year (12%) but still significantly ahead of any other region. The United States cements the number two position with 8% of our readership, but perhaps slightly ironic considering the poor availability of Xperia products for US customers. The United Kingdom rounds off the top 3 with 6% of the readership.
The rest of the top 15 countries in terms of readership include broadly the same regions as last year, albeit with some swapping of places. Canada is the only new entrant into the top 15, with Taiwan dropping out.
Readership by Mobile Devices
Desktop still dominates readership versus mobile, although the latter continues to grow as you would expect. Mobile readership gained seven percentage points to 27% in terms of readership mix, entirely at the expense of desktop, which dropped seven percentage points to 66%. Tablet readership stayed broadly the same at 6% of the readership mix.
Readership by mobile device is unsurprisingly dominated by Sony products at 58%, up by five percentage points compared to the prior year. Those reading on Apple devices take second place at 9%, although this is down by three percentage points from last year.
Readership from Samsung and Google products take third and fourth place, with 7% (up two percentage points) and 4% (up one percentage point) respectively. Mozilla is the only new entrant in the top 5, usurping Nokia’s fifth position last year.
Readership by Browser
Chrome continues to be the most popular browser to access the site. You can see the data below from 2012 to 2015, which shows Chrome accounting for 64% of visits in 2015 (up from 46% in 2012). Firefox remains the second favourite, with 16% of visits in 2015, although it has been on a downward trend for a while. In fact all of the other browsers, including Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera saw a muted performance.
Most read stories in 2015 (by number of Pageviews)
The following posts were the most read during 2015. The top read post during the year talked about the new Flashtool version that allowed you to download Xperia firmware files. This post was originally published in September 2014, so it’s a surprise to see it take top spot.
The second most popular post was our guide to installing Android Lollipop using XperiFirm and Flashtoool. No surprise here, as many took matters into their own hands to create and flash firmware for their Sony Xperia devices thanks to these excellent tools.
The third most popular post of the year was the first unboxing pictures for the Xperia Z5 Premium, which shows how many were interested in Sony’s beautiful but expensive flagship.
The rest of the top 10 posts includes four rumour stories surrounding the Xperia Z5 family, a guide on creating FTF firmware files, news around the Android Lollipop firmware release for the Xperia Z1 family and Sony’s change in stance on waterproof phones.
1. FlashTool version 0.9.18.1 allows you to download Xperia firmware files
2. Guide to installing Xperia Lollipop using XperiFirm and Flashtool
3. Sony Xperia Z5 Premium unboxing pics
4. Three minute video shows off the Xperia Z5 family in all its glory
5. Xperia Z5 press pictures emerge; 23MP camera confirmed
6. Sony changes stance on waterproof phones: Do not use underwater
7. See new hands-on pictures of the Xperia Z5, Z5 Compact and Z5 Premium
8. Create your own FTF firmware files using XperiFirm and FlashTool
9. Android Lollipop released for Xperia Z1, Z Ultra and Z1 Compact
10. New Xperia Z5 picture leaks, plus further details on next week’s launch
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 2015.
Facebook page likes: 28,658 [+28% over the prior year]
Google+ page followers: 63,157 [+11% over the prior year]
Twitter follower count: 66,680 [+32% over the prior year]