---
agentTools:
  projectIndex: https://docs.safegraph.com/llms.txt
---

# October-2024 Release Notes

"Fall" into Q4 with a brisk read through our October 2024 release notes! 🍂🧣

# [Places](https://docs.safegraph.com/docs/places) Highlights

* Concentrated sourcing efforts yield more than **half a million new places globally** :earth\_americas: :earth\_asia:
* **Narrow category improvements in Europe** - a prequel to larger scale improvements next month! 📈
* **35 new brands** spanning 42 countries :tada:

## **[Accuracy](https://docs.safegraph.com/docs/accuracy-metrics)**

SafeGraph evaluates the quality and completeness of our US POI data on a quarterly basis using two key metrics:

* [Coverage Rate](https://docs.safegraph.com/docs/accuracy-metric-methodologies#coverage-rate): The percentage of real and open SafeGraph POIs compared to the industry standard. In the US, this is Google.
* [Real Open Rate](https://docs.safegraph.com/docs/accuracy-metric-methodologies#real-and-open-rate): The percent of SafeGraph POIs we claim to be real and currently open compared to those that actually are real and open.

Each quarter, we randomly sample two zip codes (one urban and one rural) to measure our accuracy. This month we're looking at:

* 90046: West Hollywood, CA - Representative of Urban
* 05001: White River Junction, VT - Representative of Rural

Here's the summary (full breakdown on the [Metrics](https://docs.safegraph.com/docs/accuracy-metrics) page):

| Geo Aggregation  | Coverage Rate | Real Open Rate |
| :--------------- | :------------ | :------------- |
| **Total Sample** | **81%**       | **60%**        |
| 90046 (Urban)    | 82%           | 57%            |
| 05001 (Rural)    | 77%           | 71%            |

Check out our [Accuracy Metric Methodologies](https://docs.safegraph.com/docs/accuracy-metric-methodologies) for more detailed info on how we arrived at these calculations.

Interested in a particular zip code for a future measurement? We're taking [suggestions](https://forms.gle/uhNpGEPwUzQ5SkZ78)!

## **Places Growth**

This month, SG Places has a grand total of **54,525,252**, including POI with or without geometry, closed POI, and parking lots. This is a net increase of **591,293** places from last month :chart\_with\_upwards\_trend:. We on-boarded new sources to meet customer requirements in an array of countries and categories, and the following saw the largest gains:

* **France: +81,391 POIs** :fr: including:
  * `naics_code` like '7225%' (Restaurants and Other Eating Places): **+58,441** POIs 👩‍🍳 🥖
  * `naics_code` like '3121%' (Beverage Manufacturing): **+13,928** POIs 🍷🍇
  * `naics_code` like '4452%' (Specialty Food Stores): **+7,823** POIs 🍱
* **Australia: +65,509 POIs** 🇦🇺 including:
  * `naics_code` like '7225%' (Restaurants and Other Eating Places): **+31,117** POIs 👩‍🍳 🍤
  * `naics_code` like '8111%' (Automotive Repair and Maintenance): **+8,625** POIs 🚗 🔧
  * `naics_code` like '4471%' (Gasoline Stations): **+8,240** POIs ⛽️
* **Germany: +64,205 POIs** 🇩🇪 including:
  * `naics_code` like '7225%' (Restaurants and Other Eating Places): **+31,591** POIs 👩‍🍳 🌭
  * `naics_code` like '4452%' (Specialty Food Stores): **+18,994** POIs 🍱
  * `naics_code` like '4453%' (Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores): **+8,199** POIs 🍺

Of course, you can always visit our [Places Summary Stats](https://docs.safegraph.com/docs/places-summary-statistics) to find more details on our continued growth.

### **European Category Improvements**

For the past several months, we have been **fixing especially problematic categories reported across Europe**. This has included Casinos, Hospitals, and most recently, Universities. We found that, especially in Sweden 🇸🇪, our data was riddled with POIs classified as Universities (`naics_code` = 611310) that are not in fact Universities. Ex: In the previous release, we had 808 Swedish POIs classified as `naics_code` = 611310, but there are only estimated to be a maximum of \~50 Universities in Sweden 😱. After some squinting and source corrections, we now appropriately show 47 Swedish POIs classified as `naics_code` = 611310 🎓.

A series of narrow corrections is good, but eternally playing catch-up is not a great strategy. To address this, we've been working tirelessly on a better solution for `naics_codes` at scale. Stay tuned for an **announcement about our upgraded category model** set to go live in the November 2024 release!  Expect widespread `naics_code` improvements across millions of non-branded POIs globally. 💥

### **Brands**

This month, we added a grand total of **35 brands** across **42 countries** including:

* Athena Bitcoin (`SG_BRAND_0cc5d2b6f7cd314c`) with **3,138** POIs :computer: :atm:
* Mr. DIY (`SG_BRAND_5a906743931782bd`) with **3,132** POIs 🔨🏡
* Dino (`SG_BRAND_3dafefe787529f23`) with **2,485** POIs 🛒
* Coinhub ATM (`SG_BRAND_e826a86ffa158fe9`) with **2,096** POIs 💻 🏧
* Storage Rentals of America (SROA) (`SG_BRAND_c5437da63d04599d`) with **659** POIs 📦

:eyes: Are we missing a brand or country? :eyes: Please let us know [here](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfXeH2AesJShaJ9pySJno71znUWdBGiN2VaNVxzFJ37GssZfQ/viewform)

#### **Brand Openings and Closings**

* We rely on POI metadata to track store openings and closings, and we are especially interested in understanding open/close dates for branded POIs. It can take more than a month to infer open/close dates, so we report brand open/close metrics on a one month delay.
* In this release, we flagged **1,811** brands with at least one store closure in August 2024 and **1,806** brands with at least one store opening in August 2024. [Learn more about our open/close columns here](https://docs.safegraph.com/docs/places-rich-attributes#determining-when-poi-open-and-close).

### **Drops** ⬇️

* We are ingesting many sources and due to source changes and processing changes, Placekeys do drop over time. In this release, we dropped **226,068** Placekeys (32,290 branded and 193,778 non-branded).