India vs. South Africa Match Drives More than 1.4 Million Visitors to ESPNCricInfo.com in India

India vs. South Africa Match Drives More than 1.4 Million Visitors to ESPNCricInfo.com in India

A study shows that the cricket World cup caused a surge in visitation to cricket sites in India as fans went online for the latest results and match updates. Sites reached their highest volume of traffic for the month during the week ending March 13, with 16.4 percent of India's online population visiting ESPNCricInfo.com and 13.4 percent of web users visiting Yahoo! Cricket.

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. 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 March 13 with nearly 7 million people frequenting the site, an increase of 42 percent from the week ending February 20 when the tournament commenced. Yahoo! Cricket reached 5.7 million visitors during the week ending March 13, while CricBuzz.com surpassed 1 million visitors during both the weeks ending February 27 and March 13.

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, Nguyen said.

*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 March 12 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 February 19 India vs. Bangladesh match attracted 1.4 million online users in India to ESPNCricInfo.com and 1.1 million visitors to Yahoo! Cricket. The February 27 India vs. England match saw nearly 1.2 million people visit ESPNCricInfo.com and 724,000 visitors to Yahoo! Cricket.
• Australia: March 6 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 (Feb. 21) saw nearly 115,000 visitors to ESPNCricInfo.com, while the February 25 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 March 11 marked by the England vs. Bangladesh match with nearly 597,000 visitors frequenting the site. While the England vs. Ireland match on March 2 drove nearly 521,000 visitors to BBC Sport - Cricket.