The UEFA Champions League final took place at the Puskás Arena on Saturday, 30 May. According to official figures, more than 61,000 fans attended the match. The event generated excitement not only on the pitch and in front of screens, but also in roaming traffic, as visitors from around the world connected to mobile networks. To ensure a seamless experience on site, Yettel reinforced its 4G and 5G network capacity at the venue. Mobile traffic data from the immediate vicinity of the stadium, which welcomed tens of thousands of visitors, shows that – in addition to local fans – mobile users from 83 countries connected to the network. During the match alone, these roaming users generated more than 3,000 gigabytes of data traffic.
UK fans lead roaming traffic: mobile usage around the stadium…
Much like the action on the pitch, roaming traffic also saw a UK–France battle for the top spot. This time, however, the United Kingdom clearly came out ahead of France: nearly 4,000 British users connected to Yettel’s network – more than one and a half times as many as French users. Together, visitors from these two countries accounted for more than 61% of all roaming users and nearly 70% of total data traffic.
Although the number of UK users was significantly higher, French visitors used mobile internet more intensively: average data consumption per user was nearly 50% higher among French users. Looking at the five countries with the highest data usage overall, Hungary ranked third, followed by the Netherlands in fourth place and Austria in fifth.
...and across the city
Fans also made intensive use of Yettel’s ultra-fast network across Budapest on the day of the final: 125,000 users from 107 countries made calls, sent text messages or used mobile internet services. While visitors from the UK dominated network usage inside the stadium, French users were the largest group across the city, accounting for around 20% of all roaming users in Budapest. Interestingly, although by a narrow margin, the Netherlands ranked second, while the United Kingdom – which led roaming traffic around the stadium – came only third in the overall Budapest user ranking.
Looking at data traffic, however, UK users were well ahead, accounting for more than a quarter of total roaming traffic. They were followed by French users, while Austria and the Netherlands were virtually tied for third place.
Outside the stadium, across Budapest as a whole, roaming traffic was naturally far lower than domestic usage: on the day of the final, Hungarian users consumed nearly twenty times more data than foreign visitors using Yettel’s network.