World Cup Yahoo! Mobile Search Trends

Whether they’re searching for “Copa do Mundo” in Brazil or “Piala Dunia” in Indonesia, mobile users around the world turn to Yahoo! to check scores and schedules and get updates on their favorite teams and players when they are on the go. Mobile World Cup searches grew 211% week over week globally for the first matches, and jumped another 75% the following week.

Mobile searches for specific matches represent more than 10% of global World Cup search trends—in fact, Team vs. Team patterns grew 150% from the first week of the tournament to the second. People searched for all games, not just the favorites (or those with the biggest home audiences). The top-searched games of the first two weeks of the World Cup were:

1. Argentina vs. Nigeria
2. USA vs. England
3. France vs. Uruguay
4. Denmark vs. Cameroon
5. Algeria vs. England

The top-searched team countries didn’t necessarily coincide with their ranking or performance—it was all about the drama, fan loyalty, and upsets. The top searched countries included:

1. England
2. United States
3. Brazil
4. Mexico
5. Argentina

As for individual players, Lionel Messi might arguably be the No. 1 footballer in the world, but he is #2 when it comes to mobile searches — Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo is the clear winner there. Landon Donovan scored big on the field and in searches, finally putting soccer front and center in the U.S. Argentine coach Diego Maradona is in a league of his own compared to other queried coaches, grabbing 50% of the searches over Capello, Dunga, and Domenech, to name just a few.

Globally, almost 80% of the mobile World Cup-related searches are for general queries like “world cup,” “mondial,” and “south africa 2010.” For some American soccer fans, the World Cup teams ignited an interest in geography, with searches on “where is algeria,” “where is slovenia,” “where is cameroon,” etc., popping up throughout the games. Additionally, U.S. fans turned to Yahoo! on their mobile phones for answers to other questions about the world’s most popular sport: “what is offsides in soccer,” “what does the yellow card mean in soccer,” “how does world cup scoring work,” “what is the buzzing noise at the world cup” (ah, the beloved vuvuzela), and of course, “why is football called soccer.”

If the volume of searches is any indication, we can tell you that the 2010 World Cup games are a huge hit all over the world and interest continues to grow week after week. That’s all for now.

Yahoo! Mobile Search team