• by Masha Geller , March 12, 2002

comScore Networks has released the results of its latest netScore report of worldwide and U.S. Internet surfing activity for the month of February 2002, and while it looks like the overall Internet population maintained the peak level achieved in January, specific preferences of Web users around the world reveal the broad and varying role of the Internet in so many aspects of people's lives.

According to comScore, the worldwide Internet population held stable at 308.7 million users in February 2002, with virtually no significant shifts in size of specific audience segments such as US vs. non-US. However, the netScore data show increases from January 2002 in the average number of pages consumed at non-US PCs and US University PCs of 4% and 11% respectively.

Interestingly enough, with a substantial portion of the world observing the Chinese New Year and Shrove Tuesday (aka Fat Tuesday) on February 12th, the overall number of PCs active on the Internet that day fell by nearly 4% versus the previous Tuesday.

Additionally, more than 82 million Web users around the world visited at least one sports site in February, fueled largely by surges in daily and weekly activity during the Winter Olympics. But analysis of monthly site traffic at major event, association and league sites reveals fan shifts across a much broader spectrum of sports.

Although US traffic to the Professional Golf Association's pga.com was flat vs. January, pgatour.com hit full swing with a 20% larger U.S. audience, as tournament play continued across the country in February. The Daytona 500 helped drive more than double January's number of race fans to nascar.com; the site crossed February's finish line with more than 4.1 million worldwide visitors. And with March Madness fast approaching, ncaachampionships.com, ncaa.org and ncaabasketball.net enjoyed U.S. audience growth of 46%, 31% and 5% respectively.