Experian Hitwise has released some new numbers about social network
use around the world. It found that Brazil and Singapore are the top two
countries for overall social networking use. But Facebook is not the
network on which Brazilians are spending their time.
The study also measured the length of the average user's Facebook
session and found that Brazilians spent comparatively little time on Facebook. While Singapore users spend nearly nearly 39 minutes per
Facebook session on average, Brazilian users spend less than half that,
just over 18 minutes.
Where are the Brazilians if not on Facebook? They're using Orkut,
owned by Google. Orkut owns 43% of the social networking market in
Brazil, but it's losing ground to Facebook. Orkut fell by 18% since last
year, while Facebook gained by 16%. Still, for the country that uses
social networks the most in the world, it uses Facebook less than half
as long as Singapore, on average, and only 2/3 as long as the U.S.
The Hitwise study measured market share of social networking sites versus total Internet usage as its metric of overall social Web use:
Market share for social networks and forums:
- Brazil -- 18.9%
- Singapore -- 16.4%
- U.S. -- 15.4%
- India -- 14.0%
- New Zealand -- 13.9%
- France -- 15.1%
- Australia -- 13.1%
- U.K. -- 12.2%
Hitwise
also measured the length of the average user's Facebook session around
the world. ReadWriteWeb's loyal Kiwi supporters will be proud to know
that New Zealand wins the silver medal, at 30 minutes and 31 seconds:
Average time spent on Facebook in August 2011 per session:
- Singapore -- 38 mins 46 sec
- New Zealand -- 30 mins 31 sec
- Australia -- 26 mins 27 sec
- U.K. -- 25 mins 33 sec
- U.S. -- 20 mins 46 sec
- France -- 21 mins 53 sec
- India -- 20 mins 21 sec
- Brazil -- 18 mins 19 sec
Other interesting takeaways:
- India had the fastest growth in Facebook use since last year, increasing in market share by 88%.
- Facebook gained in market share by 5% in the U.S. since last year.
- 18% of Singaporeans jump directly from one social network to another during their browsing sessions.
