Gift Card Searches Surge As Last Minute Gift Idea

Visits to iTunes Website Double Over Last Year

NEW YORK, NY – December 19, 2006 – As online shipping deadlines near, consumers stumped for gift giving ideas are turning to the Internet to search for information on various branded gift cards.

Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, today announced that the share of US Internet searches for 'gift cards' surged 109 percent for the week ending December 16, 2006 versus the previous week as online shoppers looked for last minute gift ideas. Some of the fast growing gift card related searches in that period were 'american express gift cards,' up 184 percent, 'itunes gift card,' up 69 percent, and 'visa gift cards,' up 19 percent.

“For the second year now, we’ve seen a pattern of increased searches on gift cards as Christmas day approaches,” said Bill Tancer general manager of global research at Hitwise. “This year branded credit and charge gift cards dominated top searches as gift givers opted for the most flexibility for their gift recipients.”

Ipod and iTunes Searches Continue to Accelerate

'ipod' was the leading product-related search term sending visits to websites in the Hitwise Shopping and Classifieds category for the week ending December 16, 2006, outnumbering search traffic from 'zune' by 14 to 1 and 'sansa' by 90 to 1. Retail-related searches for the iPod unseated searches for the new gaming console 'nintendo wii' last week as the console became sold out in most online stores.

In addition, the share of searches containing the word 'ipod' was up 10 percent for the week ending December 16, 2006 versus the same week last year (week ending December 17, 2005) and that the market share of visits to the iTunes website (www.apple.com/itunes) was up 103 percent in the same period.

Online HolidayShopping Update:

Visits Increased 4.3 Percent Last Week to Hitwise Retail 100 Index^[1]

• This week, the Hitwise US Retail 100 Index chart shows that visits to the websites within the Index were up 4.3 percent for the week ending December 16, 2006 versus the same week last year (December 17, 2005).

• Amazon.com remained the most visited website within the Index last week, receiving 13.96 percent of visits among the Retail 100 Index. Walmart received the second-most visits with 9.05 percent. Both websites received a three percent increase in visits in market share of visits to the Retail 100 Index for the week ending December 16, 2006 compared to the previous week.
• iPod unseated the Nintendo Wii as the top product search term sending visits to Shopping and Classifieds websites for last week. The product term ‘ipod’ moved back into the top spot followed by ‘nintendo wii’ and ‘wii’ among the most popular product searches for the one-week ending December 16, 2006.

About Hitwise

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,200 global clients with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise’s patented methodology captures the anonymous online usage, search, and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into our easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement, and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise is a privately held company headquartered in New York City and operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends and statistics, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.

^[1] The Hitwise US Retail 100 Index is comprised of the leading retail websites, but excludes websites from the following categories - auctions, classifieds, computer manufacturers, relationship sales, reward point collecting and home entertainment – music download, DVD and video game rental.