comScore: Portuguese Internet Audience Approaches 4 Million Users in Sept. 2009

LONDON, Nov. 24 -- comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOR) , a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the results of a study of the online habits of Portuguese Internet users, based on data from the comScore World Metrix service.

More than 3.8 million people age 15 and older accessed the Internet from a home or work location in Portugal in September, viewing an average 1,843 pages and spending an average 1.9 hours online per person during the month.

"Portugal represents a dynamic and growing Internet market in Europe with users continuing to be more active and engaged online," said Mike Read, comScore managing director for Europe and Ibero America. "The average Internet user in Portugal is spending more time online engaging in different behaviors such as reading news and articles, search, conducting personal financial transactions and social networking. As these behaviors continue to take hold in the Portuguese market there will be an increasing number of opportunities to leverage the Internet for marketing and advertising purposes."

Google Sites Reaches 94 Percent of Portuguese Internet Audience

A total of 3.8 million people accessed the Internet in Portugal in September 2009, up 4 percent on the previous year. The most popular property was Google Sites with 3.6 million visitors, reaching 93.6 percent of the total online population, followed by Microsoft Sites (3.4 million visitors) and Portugal Telecom (2.4 million visitors).

Social networking site, Hi5.com, ranked as Portugal's fourth most popular online property in September with 2.3 million visitors. Instant messaging services and social networking sites combined to account for more than one third (36.5 percent) of the total time spent online in Portugal, with the heaviest users of social networking sites (top 20 percent of visitors to the site category) spending an average of 13.4 hours on these sites during the month.

Hi5.com Most Popular Social Networking Site

Slightly less than 3 million people visited a social networking site in September, up 16 percent versus the previous year and representing 78.4 percent of the total Portuguese online population. Hi5.com was the most popular social networking site with 2.3 million visitors, followed by Windows Live Profile (1.2 million visitors), Facebook.com (639,000 visitors) and MySpace Sites (289,000 visitors).

While Hi5.com remained the market leader in Portugal in September, international sites proved to be a growing force in the Portuguese social networking space. Facebook.com grew 463 percent on the previous year to reach 639,000 visitors in September; Badoo was up 3,018 percent to 238,000 visitors, while popular micro-blogging site, Twitter.com grew 842 percent in the past year to 249,000 visitors in September 2009.

Source: comScore