Yahoo! top for news globally, BBC ranks 9th

A new study by broadband experts at Uswitch has revealed the world’s most popular news and shopping websites – and there are a few surprises.

Analysing data from the last three months on the market intelligence platform, SimilarWeb Pro, the research reveals which news and shopping websites receive the most traffic globally, and also which ones are the most visited in different countries around the world.

The world’s most visited news websites

Yahoo.com is the news website that pulls in the most traffic globally, receiving 3.4 billion visits from around the world each month.

Yahoo’s localised domain in Japan (yahoo.co.jp), is the second-most popular news website in the world, receiving over 2.27 billion monthly visits. Interestingly, nearly 98% of all visits come from residents in Japan, with the remaining 2% of visitors coming from the USA, Korea, China and Taiwan.

Turbo Pages (turbopages.org), a Russian news site, with over 1 billion monthly visits, is the third most popular news and media outlet in the world, and Naver (naver.com) is the fourth most popular, with nearly 1.2 billion monthly visits.

The website with the fifth largest visitor numbers per month is Tencent QQ (qq.com) which is the largest news and messaging website in China and has nearly 906 million monthly visits according to SimilarWeb Pro. 

The UK’s BBC (bbc.co.uk) ranks ninth in the world’s top 20 most visited news sites, and other influential UK news sites also make an appearance; The Daily Mail is in 15^th place and The Guardian just makes the global ranking in 19^th position. Over in the USA, The New York Times comes in 13^th place and Fox News ranks in 18^th place in the top 20 list.

Top 20 News Websites Globally

Top news sites in different countries around the world

When looking at which sites receive the most traffic in different countries around the world, Yahoo.com is the top news site in 20 countries; including, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Taiwan, the USA, and Venezuela.

In the UK, the top news source is BBC (bbc.co.uk), which was famously founded in the UK in 1922 making it the world’s oldest broadcaster. Similarly to the UK, most of the other countries included in the study also rely on their homegrown news channel the most; for Australia, ABC (abc.com.au) is their most-visited news site, and the top news and media site for Germany is T-Online (tonline.de), and Stuff (stuff.co.nz) is New Zealand’s number one.

The UAE’s go-to news outlet is Khaleej Times (khaleejtimes.com), Portugal turns to SAPO (sapo.pt) more than any other site, and Libero (libero.it) is the top news website for Italy.

The world’s most visited shopping websites

Broadband experts at Uswitch also looked at the most popular shopping and retail websites in the world. Amazon (amazon.com) is revealed as the website that receives more traffic than any other shopping site in the world, boasting nearly 2.4 billion visits each month.

Amazon has captured the wants and needs of the fast-paced generation who can now order anything they want (from furniture to groceries) and have it delivered in just 24 hours. And when looking at the top 20 most visited shopping sites globally, four spots are taken by Amazon domains; after first place, amazon.com, Amazon Japan (amazon.co.jp) is third, Amazon Germany (amazon.de) is fifth, and Amazon UK (amazon.co.uk) is ninth. 

eBay (ebay.com), thanks to 761.1 million monthly visits takes second place in the global ranking, followed by Amazon Japan (amazon.co.jp) which sees over 589 million visits each month. Rakuten Japan (rakuten.co.jp) is the e-commerce site with the fourth biggest monthly traffic in the world, and fifth place Amazon Germany closely follows that with 446.8 million monthly visitors. 

Alongside e-commerce giants like Amazon and eBay, Etsy also features in the top 20. Etsy was founded in 2005 as an e-commerce platform that allows small independent businesses to widen their market and sell their products all around the globe. Etsy is the go-to place for gifting, handmade products, jewellery, furnishings and so much more, and it attracts nearly 379 million monthly visits. 

Top 20 Shopping Websites Globally

Top shopping sites in different countries around the world

Amazon (amazon.com) is the number one e-commerce site in five countries around the world – Iraq, Kuwait, Morocco, Kuwait, and the USA. Amazon UK (amazon.co.uk) is the top shopping website in the UK, Amazon Japan (amazon.co.jp) is the most visited in Japan, and Amazon France (amazon.fr comes out on top for France). Localised Amazon sites dominate the top 20 list, including, Italy, Canada, India, Germany and the UAE.

Mexico’s most visited shopping site is Mercado Libre (mercadolibre.com.mx), which is a very similar e-commerce site to Amazon, selling everything from air fryers to bamboo toothbrushes. Tokopedia (tokopedia.com) – another marketplace like Amazon and eBay – is the top site in Indonesia, whilst the most popular shopping website in Australia is ebay.com.au.