World Cup application WC2010's ads saw more than 19 million impressions during the tournament's 30-day run.

The application, available on BlackBerry phones, garnered strong results worldwide as consumer interest in the soccer tournament drove downloads. It was downloaded more than 265,000 times over the course of the World Cup.

?The success of our World Cup app further elaborates how big of an event the World Cup is,? said Kunal Gupta, CEO of Polar Mobile, Toronto. ?This was the first time we have made an app available in many languages ? English, French, German, Italian and Spanish ? and it was interesting to see how many downloads we had for each of the languages.

?The most surprising result was the fact that 50 countries used our app,? he said. ?One of our goals was to broaden our global reach, and we were able to.?

Mobile content and ad platform Polar Mobile designed the application.

The company?s clients in the sports media vertical include Sports Illustrated, The Hockey News and CBSSports.com

Scoring goals
Nearly 115,000 WC2010 users  ? 43 percent of the more than 265,000 who downloaded the application ? used it at least once a day, on average.

In addition, the average user viewed 11 pages in the application each day, for a total of 26 million page views over the course of the tournament.

?The result we were most pleased with was the 26 million page views,? Mr. Gupta said. ?People were actually using the app, not just downloading it.

?A lot of times people just download apps and only use them once or twice,? he said.

And, users were not just engaging with the application on their own ? 15 percent of users shared it with their friends via email.

Developers like Polar have been jumping at the opportunity to launch mobile initiatives for the World Cup in recent months.

Mobile developer Mobilio, for example, released an application that mimicked the cry of the World Cup's famous vuvuzela horns, which skyrocketed to the top of the Apple App Store's most-downloaded list across the world (see story).

Additionally, brands and publishers who invested heavily in mobile for the World Cup were paid handsomely for their efforts (see story).

World Cup app highlights Polar ambitions
Polar decided to create the application after the success it had with its CBS Sports March Madness 2010 application.

?We recognized a need to provide sports fans on the BlackBerry platform with other engaging sports apps,? Mr. Gupta said. ?We partnered with RIM to launch a killer World Cup app that would have an easy-to-use interface, really fast loading times, and support in five languages.?

The application included breaking World Cup news, scores, stats and standings. It also gave users access to content like up-to-date tournament brackets and game schedules.

WC2010 was powered by Polar's Smart platform, and available for free in the BlackBerry App World application store.

?The great thing about mobile is that people can see information on the go,? Mr. Gupta said. ?You can see quick updates on stats, checking instantly.

?The World Cup has such a massive amount of users and coverage, so we were able to increase our global presence,? he said. ?We were delivering exactly what users wanted ? easy to use, simple to navigate and quick to load.?

In the future, Polar will continue to develop applications to target a global audience.

?Polar is focused on global growth,? Mr. Gupta said. ?We currently have customers in nine countries, and our vision is to continue to expand into other regions around the world.

?Another key focus is our sports platform,? he said. ?Expect to see us launch major sports leagues, publishers and broadcasters in North America in time for the fall sports rush.?

Final Take
Peter Finocchiaro, editorial assistant at Mobile Marketer, New York

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