Nielsen//NetRatings Launched In Mexico.

Nielsen//NetRatings published its first data on the at-home surfing behavior of Internet users in Mexico.

These first findings for Mexico, the second largest Internet market in Latin America after Brazil, show that Mexico has 6.7 million people with Internet access from home. In April, 3.3 million people actively used the Internet, spending an average of more than eight hours online for the month. American properties dominated the top five list in Mexico for April, with only one Latin American property – Star Media Network – ranking among the top five.

Nielsen//NetRatings tracks the entire spectrum of Internet user behavior: who’s online, where they’re going, what ads they’re viewing and clicking on and how much time they spend. This information is derived from randomly selected consumer panels, continually refreshed to reflect the most current Internet universe. The Nielsen//NetRatings service is now available in 26 countries, providing advertisers, websites, advertising agencies, media buyers, venture capitalists and Internet analysts with access to timely, accurate and extensive information on the Internet population.

Tolis Vossos, CEO, IBOPE eRatings.com, said: “By introducing a credible, third-party means of measuring all Internet activity in Mexico, Nielsen//NetRatings will contribute to the growth of the Internet in this important market. Our research is conducted with the highest regard for accuracy, using the same recruitment and measurement techniques across every market we measure. Nielsen//NetRatings now places Mexican Internet user behavior in a global context, which will allow the large international advertisers to easily include the Mexican online market in their media plans.”

Similar to the Internet audience in Brazil, the Internet audience in Mexico is majority male, with men comprising 58% of the audience and females comprising 42% of the audience in April. The composition of the Brazilian Internet audience in April was nearly identical, at 57% male and 43% female. Mexicans spent an additional 30 minutes online in April than their Brazilian counterparts (see Table 1), and visited more unique sites during the month and more page views per surfing session than surfers in Brazil. However, Internet users in Brazil had a higher click rate for ad banners than Internet users in Mexico.

Vossos noted that Mexicans celebrated Holy Week and Easter in April, which would be expected to decrease time spent online. However, Mexicans still spent more than 8 hours online in April, more than 30 minutes longer than their Brazilian counterparts.

In April, the most visited categories of websites in Mexico were search engines and portals (see Table 2). Nearly 90% of Mexican surfers visited a search engine or a portal during the month, and just over 80% visited telecom and Internet providers. Providers of hard- and software were also popular, as were entertainment sites and online communities.

The top five Internet properties in Mexico in April were mainly global and American properties (see Table 3), with only one Latin American property appearing on the list.

“Global properties such as MSN and Yahoo! have been very successful around the world in creating local content that draws users in each market,” Vossos said. “One look at the data for Mexico reveals that the same is true for their presence in this market. Latin American properties have much room for growth in attracting the Mexican surfer.”

Click above on ‘More Images’ for charts.

For more information at http://www.nielsen-netratings.com.