Australian social media penetration hits 90%

7Apr10

Source: Adnews

Australia has the second highest social media penetration in Asia Pacific region (89.6%) with Facebook the number one site, according to new figures from comScore.

Australia fell just behind the Phillipines for social media penetration (90%) with internet users averaging 21 visits in February 2010 at 3.8 hours per visitor.

The report into social networking activity across the Asia-Pacific region – excluding China – found half (50.8%) of the total online population in the region visited a social networking site in February, reaching a total of 240.3 million visitors.

Facebook.com was ranked as the top social network across most regional markets including Australia, however the site was pipped to the top spot by Orkut in India, Mixi.jp in Japan, CyWorld in South Korea and Wretch.cc in Taiwan.

Across the region internet users averaged 2.5 hours on social networking sites during the month and visited the category an average of 15 times.

“While social networking continues to be one of the most popular and fastest growing Web activities in the world, its dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region exhibit significantly more individual market differentiation than in other global regions,” said Will Hodgman, comScore executive vice president for Asia Pacific.

“In some markets, such as the Philippines, Australia and Indonesia, social networking is one of the most popular Web activities reaching nearly 90% of the entire Internet population, while other markets report less PC-based social networking penetration, which can often be attributed to the high propensity to engage in social networking via mobile devices in these markets.”

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