Back Mobile Web Site Performance Varies Widely Among Leading Retailers, Finds New Compuware Gomez Benchmark

If you plan on browsing or shopping on the mobile Web this holiday season, the experience might take as much as four seconds longer on some retailers' mobile Web sites than others. This was the finding of a new benchmark published today by Gomez, the Web performance division of Compuware Corporation (Nasdaq:CPWR) that compares and ranks the mobile Web performance of the nation's top retailers. With the holiday season upon us, Gomez's new Mobile Retail Web Performance benchmark is the first report that analyzes the state of retail mobile Web performance.

Between November 1 and November 15, Gomez monitored the mobile Web performance of the home pages of 14 top retailers, testing from different geographies and mobile carriers to measure their response times and availability when accessed from a popular cell phone. The Gomez Mobile Retail Web Performance benchmark found that Amazon's mobile site loaded fastest at 2.8 seconds and had top availability at 99.86 percent. To see the full benchmark data, please visit: http://benchmarks.gomez.com/viewbenchmark.php?btype=105&bcategory=mobile [1].

The new benchmark also found that the average response time for the mobile Web sites tested was 4.7 seconds -- over 50 percent slower than the average response times of the top retailers' "traditional" Web sites, according to Gomez's current Retail Home Page Web Performance Benchmark. The new benchmark also reported that retailers' mobile home page availability (uptime) averaged at 98.74 percent -- by comparison, the average availability for "traditional" retail Web sites was 99.76 percent.

While some might accept mobile Web sites performing slower, given the bandwidth of wireless networks, a recent survey of 1,000 mobile Web users found that the majority actually expect Web sites to load as quickly, almost as quickly, or faster on their mobile phone, compared to their home or work computer. The same survey also revealed that two out of three people have encountered problems accessing mobile Web sites, with slow load times their chief complaint. 85 percent said they are only willing to retry a mobile Web site two times or less if it does not work initially, and 40 percent said they'd likely visit a competitor's mobile Web site instead.

"This holiday season will be the first true test of the performance of retailers' mobile sites," said Matt Poepsel, VP of Performance Strategies, Gomez division, Compuware. "And while we know that online shoppers have low tolerance for long wait times for traditional online shopping Web pages, it will be interesting to see whether they will be willing to sacrifice speed for the convenience of mobile browsing and shopping. The wide disparity found in the new Gomez mobile benchmark highlights that many retailers have more work to do to improve their mobile Web performance or risk losing a potential slice of the holiday action."

The Gomez Mobile Retail Web Performance benchmark joins Gomez's existing benchmarks that measure and rank the Web performance of the nation's top retailers and can be accessed at:

 -- Retail Home Page Web Performance benchmark:
    http://benchmarks.gomez.com [2]./viewbenchmark.php?btype+42&bcategory=retail.

 -- Retail Online Transaction Web Performance benchmark:
    http://benchmarks.gomez.com [2]./viewbenchmark.php?btype=8&bcategory=retail.

Gomez, the Web performance division of Compuware, provides the industry's leading solutions for optimizing the performance, availability, and quality of Web and mobile applications. The on-demand Gomez platform integrates solutions for Web load testing, Web performance management, Web cross-browser testing, and Web performance business analysis that test and measure Web and mobile applications from the "outside-in" -- across all users, browsers, devices, and geographies -- using a global network of over 100,000 locations. When combined with Compuware Vantage, Gomez offers the industry's only solution for optimizing application performance across the Enterprise and the Internet. Over 2,500 customers worldwide, ranging from small companies to large enterprises -- including 12 of the top 20 most visited US Web sites - use Gomez solutions to increase revenue, build brand loyalty, and decrease costs.

Compuware Corporation

Founded in 1973, Compuware provides software, experts and best practices to ensure applications work well and deliver business value. Compuware solutions optimize application performance across the Enterprise and the Internet for leading businesses around the world, including 46 of the top 50 Fortune 500 companies and 12 of the top 20 most visited U.S. web sites. Learn more at: http://www.compuware.com [5].