2011 Cricket World Cup: India turns to web
For example, the India vs South Africa match drove more than 1.4 million visitors to ESPNCricInfo.com in India.
Sites reached their highest volume of traffic for the month during the week ending 13 March, with 16.4% of India's online population visiting ESPNCricInfo.com and 13.4% of web users visiting Yahoo! Cricket.
Online traffic surges across top cricket sites in India
Internet traffic to select leading cricket sites in India surged in the first month of the tournament. ESPN's cricket site, ESPNCricInfo.com, saw the largest volume of visitors for the first four weeks of the tournament during the week ending 13 March with nearly 7 million people frequenting the site, an increase of 42% from the week ending 20 February, when the tournament commenced. Yahoo! Cricket reached 5.7 million visitors during the week ending 13 March, while CricBuzz.com surpassed 1 million visitors during both the week ending 27 February and 13 March.
"The Internet continues to play an increasingly important role in sports tournaments across the globe as fans turn to the web for real-time updates, results and live-streaming of matches," said Joe Nguyen, comScore vice president for Southeast Asia. "We expect to see even greater visitation to cricket-related sites with the upcoming rivalry match between India and Pakistan on March 30, which is sure to be followed with great interest in both countries."
| Weekly Traffic to Select Cricket Sites in India* Week Ending February 20, 2011 to March 13, 2011 Total India Internet Audience* Age 15+ Home & Work Locations Source: comScore, Inc. | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unique Visitors (000) for Week Ending... | |||||
| Feb. 20, 2011 | Feb. 27, 2011 | Mar. 6, 2011 | Mar. 13, 2011 | % Change | |
| Mar. 13 vs. Feb. 20 | |||||
| ESPNCricInfo.com | 4,863 | 6,450 | 5,304 | 6,928 | 42% |
| Yahoo! Cricket | 3,831 | 5,359 | 3,903 | 5,679 | 48% |
| CricBuzz.com | 858 | 1,038 | 798 | 1,178 | 37% |
*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
Daily visitation to cricket sites in India, Australia and UK:
- India: The 12 March India vs South Africa match drove more than 1.4 million online users to ESPNCricInfo.com and 1.2 million visitors to Yahoo! Cricket. The 19 February India vs Bangladesh match attracted 1.4 million online users in India to ESPNCricInfo.com and 1.1 million visitors to Yahoo! Cricket. The 27 February India vs England match saw nearly 1.2 million people visit ESPNCricInfo.com and 724 000 visitors to Yahoo! Cricket.
- Australia: 6 March saw the largest visitor volume to leading site ESPNCricInfo.com in Australia with more than 138 000 visitors frequenting the site that day driven by the England vs South Africa and India vs Ireland matches. The day of the Australia vs Zimbabwe match (21 February) saw nearly 115 000 visitors to ESPNCricInfo.com, while the 25 February Australia vs New Zealand match drove 100 000 visitors to the site.
- UK: In the UK, the largest spike in traffic to top destination BBC Sport - Cricket occurred on 11 March marked by the England vs Bangladesh match with nearly 597 000 visitors frequenting the site. While the England vs Ireland match on 2 March drove nearly 521 000 visitors to BBC Sport - Cricket.
Stay tuned to more updates from comScore on Internet usage during the 2011 Cricket World Cup and check out the comScore Data Mine for colourful, bite-sized graphical representations of our latest Cricket-related data. www.comscoredatamine.com/.