Online interest in BRICS increase by 200% over past year
Last week, one of the most significant events for Tatarstan and Russia as a whole, the BRICS summit, held on October 22-24, was successfully finished in Kazan. This could not but cause a surge of interest on the Internet. According to the query analytics service GoogleTrends, attention to the BRICS increased by 200% over the past year. The interest is equally expressed by the cities of the Volga region and other states. However, BRICS attracted netizens in the past as well. Read more about which issues on the topic are of the greatest interest, where people are more likely to search for information on it and what causes the spikes in interest in the summit — in the material of Realnoe Vremya.
According to an October VTSIOM study, the absolute majority of Russians (83%) are more or less aware of the organisation, including 41% who know about it well, 42% — without details. A recent study by Kommersant showed that young people from key BRICS countries are interested in developing the association.
BRICS on Google
According to GoogleTrends, this October, people searched for BRICS much more often than ever before.
The service does not provide a detailed number of requests, but evaluates interest in points, where 100 is the highest. Thus, the period of October 20-26 is estimated with the maximum score, which is more than three times higher than in June 2024 (the second most requested period).
The most frequent questions from users on similar topics related to the dates of the summit, its participants and everything related to the BRICS Games.
Basically, the event attracted the attention of residents of Russia, and especially Tatarstan, where the event was held. The other nearby areas were roughly equal in points of interest.
However, as mentioned earlier, the service does not provide complete and detailed information about the number of requests, nor does it disclose the reasons for the spikes in interest in the past. In this regard, Realnoe Vremya turned to another analytics service — from the Russian search engine Yandex.
BRICS on Yandex
According to Wordstat statistics, until October of this year, the peak of search queries was in June, which was the second highest result in the last two years. For comparison, in September 2024, 663,000 requests were recorded, and in June of the same year — 1.339 million requests.
Here, the highest interest in the topic was shown again in Tatarstan — the index of interest was 1,088%, and in particular in Kazan, where the forum was held, the index was 1,639%.
Other countries are also actively interested in the summit, for example, in the province of Kirsehir (Turkey), the index of interest was 662.53%, as well as in a small Arab state in Southwest Asia, Oman, the index of interest was 554.72%. Interestingly, the indicator of these countries is almost on a par with the cities of the Volga region, for example, in Chistopol the index of interest was 694%, and in Volzhsk — 557.89%.
Specifically, during this period, almost nothing was wanted to know about the summit in Kazakhstan (in the Saryagash district) and in Belarus (in the city of Novogrudok), where the index of interest was 3.28% and 2.31%, respectively. Despite that the presidents of the countries have become BRICS members.
The most frequent requests were “BRICS” (793,900 requests) and “BRICS 2024” (203,200 requests).
Reasons for high activity
We have already found out that the main interest of users on this topic was attracted by the participants of the summit and the dates of its holding, but what is the reason for such an upsurge in the past? If we look at it in more detail, by week, then the greatest number of times people searched for information about the BRICS in three small periods:
- from August 21 to 27, 2023 (608,900 requests);
- from June 10 to June 16, 2024 (539,400 requests);
- from June 17 to June 23, 2024 (438,200 requests).
On June 10-16 of this year, preparations began and the BRICS Sports Games started. The member states of the union have gradually begun to express their opinion on the union. Google statistics also confirmed that people were interested in this particular topic at that time.
Up until June 24, when the BRICS Games were closed, the results were summed up, various representatives of the association from different countries came. In addition, the BRICS+ Cities Forum began on June 21, at which dozens of agreements were signed.
The sports games were held in Kazan from June 12 to 23, 2024, which coincides with the dates of increased user activity. And the XV BRICS summit was held from August 22 to 24, 2023 in Johannesburg (South Africa), which also coincided with the first date of great interest.