2010 Presidential Election Helps Boost Online Activity in Brazil

USA - English

• Brazil - Português

SAO PAULO, Feb. 9, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a study on key trends in Brazilian Internet usage in 2010. The study found that this year's presidential election and second round run-off caused online traffic to double to the Politics category during October. In addition, categories such as News/Information and Blogs also saw a significant increase during the month. comScore will be presenting these and other key online trends in a complimentary webinar, The State of the Internet in Brazil. For more details and to register, please visit: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/196189480  

Note: The webinar will be conducted in Portuguese, an English recording will also be available.

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"In 2010 more than previous election years, the Internet clearly played a central role for candidates as well as voters," said Alex Banks, comScore managing director for Brazil and vice president for Latin America. "As we have observed, Brazilians turn to the Internet not only as an outlet for social networking, entertainment and communication, but also as a source of information, analysis and commentary during important national events such as the presidential election. With each year we see the Internet becoming more and more important in Brazilian culture, and we expect Internet usage in Brazil to continue its strong growth in 2011."

Total Visits to the Internet in October 2010 up almost 20 Percent from October 2009, Traffic to Blogs and News Sites Grows

During the key election month of October, Brazilians visited the Internet more than 2.3 billion times, up 20 percent versus October 2009.  In addition, total minutes spent online increased to 64 billion in 2010, up from 54 billion minutes the previous year.

Other categories that displayed significant growth throughout the election season were News/Information, which includes all major newspapers as well as election-focused sites from large portals including UOL and Terra, as well as the Blogs category.  As a whole, the News/Information category experienced a 35 percent increase in visitation in October 2010 versus October 2009.The Blogs category also surged in October 2010 increasing in audience by 34 percent versus the previous year, and reaching its peak for the year in both percent reach (74 percent of the entire Brazilian online population) as well as total visits (383 million, respectively).  During October, Brazilians clearly turned to news sites and blogs for the latest election news and political commentary.

comScore's Alex Banks will be presenting the "State of the Internet in Brazil – 2010 Year in Review" via live, complimentary webinar on February 9 at 3:00 p.m. BRST . For more information and to register, please visit: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/196189480

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SOURCE comScore, Inc.