Twitter usage spikes during World Cup in Russia

Russia, where the World Cup has attracted over two million visitors, is becoming a hotspot for the app's users.

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The FIFA World Cup started on June 14 in Russia and the world is engrossed in it. It is hard to find someone not watching it. All countries have kick-started their month-long campaign where 64 matches will be played. But the biggest winner as of now seems to be Tinder matches, with the dating app recording 66 percent more matches during the World Cup.

Russia, where the World Cup has attracted over two million visitors, is becoming a hotspot for the app's users. Moscow Times reported that Russian mobile operators registered a spike in the usage of the app, that lets people looking for dates find interested parties within a user's location, during the tournament.

One of Russia's top mobile operators, MTS, saw an 11-fold increase in the usage of Tinder on match days among long-term customers. The surge was registered in and around stadiums and fan parks in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Saransk, the report said.

Tele2 recorded a 3.5 times increase in Tinder usage compared to the average numbers before the World Cup. Another operator, MegaFon, said Tinder accounted for one percent of its total traffic during the opening match between Russia and Saudi Arabia.

This is not the first time the app is seeing a surge in usage during a worldwide sporting event. During the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea, Tinder usage shot up to nearly 350 percent.