Fútbol Fever - Latin Americans’ World Cup Excitement Plays out on FIFA.com
World Cup interest continued to intensify around the globe through the end of June. Traffic to FIFA.com reached a global high on Tuesday, June 22 as the end of group play revealed which teams would advance to the next round. More than 8.7 million people visited the official World Cup destination that day, representing 1.3% of the entire global Internet audience.
Interest in the World Cup, using visitation to FIFA.com as a proxy, grew significantly across each global region during the month of June. Latin America posted the strongest regional penetration relative to the rest of the world at 6.5% for the week ending June 27, followed by the Middle East – Africa at 5.6%. Europe reached 3.8% penetration, followed by North America at 2.9% and Asia Pacific at 1.6%.
An analysis of the 40+ individual countries currently reported by Comscore showed that countries in South America showed the strongest relative visitation to FIFA.com for the week ending June 27. Chile had the highest market penetration with nearly 11% of online users in the country visiting FIFA.com during the week, followed by Argentina at 9.2%. Even without teams in the tournament, Colombia and Venezuela both posted penetration levels above 9%. World Cup host country South Africa ranked fifth at 8.3%, while Portugal had the highest penetration among European markets at 7.5%. New Zealand topped the list for the Asia-Pacific region at 7.3 percent with their June 24 match against Paraguay driving New Zealanders to the site. The U.S. witnessed a 2.4-percent reach (its highest weekly penetration of the entire World Cup) as it topped Algeria to advance to the next round of play.
For continued coverage of Internet trends throughout the 2010 World Cup, visit the Comscore Voices blog or @comscore for additional updates.