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comScore releases list of top South American sites

By Andrew Redfern @ 6th June 2008 11:44 am

comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an overview of Internet usage in Latin America, a region that is home to nearly 62 million of the 850 million worldwide Internet users (age 15 and older at
home and work locations), as measured by the comScore World Metrix audience measurement service.

In April, Brazil had the largest Internet audience in Latin America with more than 19 million Internet users. Brazilians also exhibited heavy engagement, with the average Internet user spending 30.2 hours online during the month, substantially higher than the Latin American (28.6 hours) and worldwide (25.7 hours) averages. Argentina (32.4 hours) and Venezuela
(31.5 hours) also exhibited heavy engagement.

Despite their heavy engagement while online, Latin Americans are less frequent Internet users, with most countries falling below the worldwide average for usage days per month.

Overview of Latin American Internet Usage by Country
Latin America                  61,610           16.3             28.6
Brazil                         19,320           16.0             30.2
Mexico                         11,773           14.7             23.7
Argentina                       8,440           17.8             32.4
Chile                           5,320           17.4             28.4
Colombia                        3,284           16.4             27.9
Venezuela                       1,556           17.2             31.5
Puerto Rico                       854           15.0             19.7

*Excludes traffic from public computers, such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones/PDAs.

“The Latin American Internet audience has grown significantly during the past year and at a substantially faster rate than more established Internet markets like North America and Europe,” said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president.

“The high engagement among Latin American Internet users, combined with this rapidly expanding audience, represents a sizable market opportunity for Internet companies choosing to focus their efforts on this region.”

Google Sites ranked as the top property in Latin America with more than 55 million visitors in April, (approximately 90 percent of the total Latin American audience), an increase of 22 percent versus the same month last year. The property has been bolstered by the growth of several Google-owned entities, including YouTube.com (up 81 percent to 30.6 million visitors), Blogger.com (up 65 percent to 27.8 million visitors) and Orkut (up 31 percent to 15.2 visitors).
Top 25 Properties by Number of Latin American Unique Visitors
Google Sites                                          55,290
Microsoft Sites                                       54,914
Yahoo! Sites                                          38,621
MercadoLibre                                          27,534
Wikipedia Sites                                       26,347
Terra Networks                                        25,873
UOL Sites                                             16,711
Orange Sites                                          15,241
WordPress                                             14,570
HI5.COM                                               12,831
Groupe Hi-Media                                       12,242
Grupo Brasil Telecom                                  12,103
Organizacoes Globo                                    11,851
Fox Interactive Media                                 11,793
AOL LLC                                               11,122
Grupo Intercom                                        10,661
Ask Network                                            8,967
Gruppo DADA                                            8,956
Adobe Sites                                            8,854
BuscaPe Inc.                                           8,805
Batanga                                                8,797
MONOGRAFIAS.COM                                        8,297
Apple Inc.                                             7,821
eBay                                                   7,725
FACEBOOK.COM                                           7,711

*Excludes traffic from public computers, such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones/PDAs.

Latin Americans spend the most time online — nearly 29 hours per month on average — compared to other worldwide regions. Usage of various online communication media drives much of their online engagement. Users spend a significant portion of their time each month on instant messengers (9.2 hours per visitor), social networking sites (5.9 hours per visitor), and
e-mail (4.1 hours per visitor).

Portals, which aggregate a variety of content across a network of sites, ranked as the most engaging site category, with 13.4 hours per visitor.

Highest Engagement Categories Among Latin American Internet Users
Portals                                    13.4              35.8
Instant Messengers                          9.2              31.6
Social Networking                           5.9              25.9
e-mail                                      4.1              22.1
Entertainment                               2.2              10.0
Games                                       1.7              13.0
Photos                                      1.7              16.0
Multimedia                                  1.4              10.2
Kids                                        1.2              18.4
Online Gaming                               1.1              12.2

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