In the month of June, Kenyans principally searched for information on the FIFA 2018 World Cup, according to the top trending searches released by Google.
Top on the list was a search for the upcoming fixtures for the World Cup, which started on June 14 2018. Kenyans went online to find information on the groups and results of the completed matches at the preliminary group stages.
The month also saw Kenyans go online to keep track of teams such as Brazil, which occupies a spot among the favourites at every World Cup. Conversations centered on professional forward Neymar da Silva Junior, and the expectation placed on him for Brazil’s advancement at the World Cup. The pressure was evident following the close of the second and third games where Neymar broke down in tears despite Brazil winning 2-0 against Costa Rica.
Kenyans also went online to search for information on the newly appointed State House Deputy Spokesperson, Kanze Dena. The former Citizen TV anchor was appointed to the role as part of an overhaul of the Presidential Strategic Communication Unit. In the same month, Ms. Dena gave her first official State House briefing since her promotion to the position and Kenyans went online to discuss her performance.
World Cup 2018 continued to dominate the Google search lists in June, with the Portugal vs. Spain match taking the seventh place. Cristiano Ronaldo’s first World Cup hat trick helped Portugal achieve a 3-3 draw with Spain. Other searches for matches include Brazil vs Switzerland where Philippe Coutinho and Steven Zuber scored one goal each for Brazil and Switzerland, respectively. The Nigeria vs. Argentina match rallied fans from across the continent, who placed their hopes on Nigeria advancing to the next stage, and fans of long-standing World Cup participants, Argentina. Argentina vs. Croatia
Among the list of top ten Kenyan trending searches was the news of the death of Tanzanian Bongo artist,Sam wa Ukweli at number 8. The singer fell ill while recording music at the studio and was pronounced dead upon arrival at Palestina Hospital in Dar es Salaam.
Google Search Trends is a publicly available tool that indicates search patterns over a period of time and shows the clusters of searches that made it to the weekly trending searches in the country. Here are results for the most popular searches by Kenyans in the past month in descending order:
- World Cup fixtures
- World Cup 2018
- World Cup groups
- Brazil
- Kanze Dena
- Portugal vs. Spain
- Brazil vs. Switzerland
- Sam wa Ukweli
- Nigeria vs. Argentina
- Argentina vs. Croatia
