Asia second to Europe in World Cup web analysis

ComScore Networks has analysed online visitors from more than 30 countries to the Yahoo! Fifa World Cup football tournament website. During April 2006, comScore recorded 5.7 million unique visitors to the site, up 35 percent from 4.2 million in March. Bob Ivins, comScore managing director for Europe, , told Fiona Torrance of iMedia Connection that he attributed the substantial increase to the worldwide popularity of the World Cup and the internet's potential as a "powerful marketing channel to reach this global audience."

comScore measured the traffic through unique visitors in thousands to this site by region -- Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Africa/Middle East and North America. The Europeans led with 51 percent, followed by Asia Pacific with 17 percent and Latin America with 12 percent. Both Africa/Middle East and North American drew 10 percent. "This really drives home the global nature of the game and the World Cup tournament," said Ivins.

comScore also used Yahoo's local language World Cup sites to measure unique online visitors driven by global interest and tournament marketing campaigns. English language visitors amounted to 43 percent, followed by Germans with 24 percent. The Spanish and Japanese tied with 10 percent. The French, Portuguese and Italian ranged from six to four percent.