Last year Hitwise highlighted the massive growth in UK Internet traffic to Polish websites, noting how the increase in visits reflected the growth of the Polish immigrant population in the UK (over a million). Things have changed significantly since then; and one theory is that many Polish workers are returning home to escape the recession in the UK.
Estimates as to the number of Polish people in the UK range from half a million to over a million. Mass immigration from Central and Eastern Europe has led to a rush for the ‘Polish Pound’, with everyone from multinational banks to independent grocers getting in on the act. One of the great things about Hitwise is that we can use Internet data to illustrate changes such as these. As you can see from the chart below, UK Internet traffic to a Hitwise custom category consisting of the top 100 Polish language and community websites increased nine-fold between January 2006 and January 2008.
This year the wind has seemingly changed direction:
While statistics from the Home Office indicate that the number of Eastern European migrants has fallen since the economic downturn started to bite, it is less clear whether there has been a net reduction on the number of Polish and other ‘new Europe’ citizens living in the UK. Maybe Hitwise stats might provide some evidence: if Polish Internet usage in the UK increased during the period of net immigration, surely the opposite trend would imply net migration? Well, looking at the chart below, it’s certainly the case that Polish Internet usage is declining in the UK for the first time.
Top 10 Polish websites in the UK, ranked by market share of Internet visits to the Polish sites custom category during April 2009
1. Nasza Klasa (22.8%)
2. Google Poland (15.7%)
3. Onet.eu (14.3%)
4. Wirtualna Polska (9.8%)
5. Interia.pl (4.6%)
6. poczta.wp.pl (4.5%)
7. www.o2.pl (3.2%)
8. Polish Wikipedia (1.8%)
9. Peb (1.4%)
10. Wizz Air (1.3%)
Nasza Klasa, as highlighted in our recent post Top 20 Websites and Search Engines in the UK, in the 9th most popular Social Media website in the UK, above websites like Gumtree.com with a respectable 0.63% of the overall traffic.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:27 pm
I wonder what proportion of migrants stop visiting sites hosted in their home country after say six months or so of being in the UK.
June 2nd, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Polish social media site is more popular than Gumtree? Wow! I wouldn’t expect that at all – what a neat bit of data
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June 2nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
@sean Great point. I guess this is another caveat of the stats and probably can’t be assessed.
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Based on a trial set of ‘our friends’ – I can confirm a lot of Poles have indeed returned.
Not all for economic reasons; some to settle their kids in Poland, some to attend university.
Also – of those Poles we know – most continue to listen to Polish radio via the net and most use both Facebook and Polish social networking sites.
Hardly in depth – but that’s my experience.
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July 2nd, 2011 at 8:15 am
I would guess that when Turkey joins the EU, the Daily Mail will have something else to write about.