Latin America’s Web Landscape
Recent figures released, by comScore World Metrix, paint a broad picture of what the Internet landscape looks like in Latin America. Of the 849.6 million worldwide Internet users located across the world in April 2008, 61.6 million of them resided in Latin America.
The average visitor in Latin America spent 28.6 hours online during April, compared to 25.7 hours spent online by an average worldwide Web user.
Brazil was the largest Latin American constituent with 19.3 million visitors in April, each spending an average of 30.2 hours online. Mexico was second with 11.8 million visitors, followed by Argentina with 8.4 million visitors. Argentineans spent an average of 32.4 hours online during April.
Chile (5.3 million), Colombia (3.3 million), Venezuela (1.6 million), and Puerto Rico (854,000) rounded out the top seven.
The Internet audience in Latin America has grown faster than audiences in more developed markets such as North America and Europe, according to 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,” he said.
Google Sites took the top spot on the list of the “Top 25 Properties of Latin American Unique Visitors” during April, attracting 55.3 million visitors. Microsoft Sites ranked second with 54.9 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 38.6 million unique visitors.
MercadoLibre (27.5 million), Wikipedia Sites (26.3 million), Terra Networks (25.9 million), UOL Sites (16.7 million), Orange Sites (15.2 million), WordPress (14.6 million), and HI5.com (12.8 million) rounded out the top 10 on the list.
Portals are the most engaging category for Latin Americans, as each visitor spends an average of 13.4 hours on these sites (35.8 minutes per day). Instant messaging is also a popular activity, with users spending 9.2 hours IMing with their family and friends (31.6 minutes per day). Social Networking is also popular, taking up 5.9 hours of an average visitor’s time (25.9 minutes per day). Latin American visitors spent 4.1 hours during April using their e-mail accounts (22.1 minutes per day).
Entertainment, Games, Photos, Multimedia, Kids, and Online Gaming rounded out the list of the top 10 most engaging Web categories for Latin American users, in that order.
