Brazilian consumers spend an average of 19.3 hours online for personal use versus 9.8 hours watching TV, according to a study released by Deloitte. Sixty-seven million Brazilians now have internet access, which is approximately 34 percent of the population, reports Internet World Stats.
While Google’s Orkut social network is virtually unknown to Americans, its dominance in the Brazilian market is unparalleled by any other social networking site in the world. Comscore data from late 2008, shows that Orkut enjoys a 79 percent market share in Brazil. The same numbers indicate Facebook is popular with just 1 percent of Brazilian internet users.
With so much web activity on social networks in Brazil and elsewhere, it’s not hard to see the explosive advertising potential for companies that know how to engage this audience successfully.