Nielsen: Soccer fans going mobile for World Cup

The 2010 FIFA World Cup kicks off June 11, and viewers across the globe are turning to mobile to follow the action, according to research firm Nielsen. Twenty-one percent of users worldwide indicate plans to get at least some World Cup information via the mobile web, with 9 percent turning to mobile applications--23 percent of U.S. subscribers said they will follow World Cup coverage on their mobile device, ahead of Brazil (21 percent), Ireland (18 percent) and Canada (11 percent) but behind Venezuela (27 percent). Nielsen notes that in nations across the Middle East and Africa, between 22 percent and 30 percent of respondents plan to follow the tournament on mobile, but that number plunges in soccer-crazed European nations like Germany and Spain to just 3 percent.

"Where it gets really interesting is with TV usage: live TV broadcast and mobile Internet access were moderately negatively correlated (-0.46), indicating that the less likely you are to watch the live TV broadcast the more likely you are to seek out the information with your mobile phone," writes Nielsen Telecom Practice senior vice president Roger Entner on the Nielsen Blog. "At the same time delayed broadcasting/highlights was completely randomly correlated (-0.03) with using Internet on the phone to find out about the World Cup. This indicates that people want to know about the games immediately and not get rid of the television viewing experience."

For more on the World Cup mobile metrics:
- read this Nielsen Blog entry

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