Nearly half of European online audience visit sports sites

This release highlights internet usage in 49 European markets aggregated into the European region and provides individual reporting on 18 markets. Amongst its findings, the study also showed that 46% of Europeans visit Sports sites, with Turkey and Ireland having the highest penetration at approximately 70% in February 2012.

71% of Turkish internet users keen on sport

177.1 million internet users (45.8% reach) in Europe visited a Sports site in February, representing an increase of 15% in the past year. Sports sites reached 70.7% (16.4 million users) of the internet audience in Turkey, the highest penetration for the category across Europe. Globally, Turkey ranked a close second for penetration of Sports sites behind only the United States (70.9%). Ireland also proved to have keen sports fans with nearly 70% of the online audience accessing these sites, followed by Spain (65.9%) and the UK (64.3%).

Males nearly twice as engaged with sports sites

A demographic analysis of the internet users visiting Sports sites revealed that an average male user spent 68.0 minutes consuming sports content compared to an average female user who spent 36.5 minutes during the month. Males accounted for 58.7% (104.0 million users) of all users accessing Sports sites while females accounted for 41.3% (73.1 million users). 25-34-year-old men exhibited the heaviest engagement with an average of 82.4 minutes per user surfing sports sites during the month. Interestingly, amongst women, the most engaged age group were the 45-54-year-olds who spent 40.8 minutes on the category on average in February 2012.

European internet usage by country

Below is a snapshot of European internet usage in the 18 reportable markets for which comScore provides individual reporting. The Russian internet audience continued to be the largest online market in Europe with 54.6 million users going online in February. The UK audience was the most engaged across Europe, with an average user spending 36.7 hours online. Turkey ranked first when it came to the average pages a user visited during the month (3937 pages on average per visitor).