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Will Hodgman, Executive Vice President, comScore -APAC explains, “The sports category has experienced tremendous growth throughout the last year as more Indians turn to the Internet as their first source of up-to-the-minute news on their favorite teams and players. January saw a particularly strong increase in traffic fueled by the IPL3 player auction on the 19th of the month. With IPL3 set to begin in March, we expect to see continued growth at many sports sites as fans prepare for the tournament’s return to India.”

In January 2010, 10.3 million Internet users age 15 and older visited a sports site in India from a home or work location, an increase of 97 percent from the previous year. Yahoo! Cricket led as the most visited sports destination with nearly 4 million visitors, up 305 percent versus last year. ESPN grabbed the #2 position with 3.5 million visitors (up 109 percent) followed by Sify Sports with more than 1 million visitors (up 379 percent). Cricket-specific sites also posted strong visitation figures including CricBuzz.com (640,000 visitors), CricketNirvana.com (523,000 visitors),KrishCricket.com (306,000 visitors) and Cricketnext (278,000 visitors).