apple.com Hits # 1


apple.com has achieved a # 1 ranking among hardware sites, beating out Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Gateway and Toshiba, among others, reports Internet Retailer.

apple.com scored 3.75 million unique visitors, the article says, reporting statistics from Nielsen/NetRatings' AdRelevance report for the week ending May 11, 2003.

HP lagged well behind with 2.47 million hits logged, and Dell was well behind the leaders on 1.94 million. Gateway scored a mere 312,000, while Toshiba trailed with 157,000 hits.

However, the down side to the web statistics is that visitors stayed the least length of time, averaging only 3 minute on apple.com. The average for hardware sites was 11 minutes, 55 seconds. HP led in the length-of-visit department.

Analysis: Perhaps that's because the HP site is so slow? Apple's hitometer certainly would have risen with the traffic generated by the iTunes Music Store, but it's good to see the level of awareness of Apple's music venture -and other products - is strong out there.