The Philippines leads the world in time spent on social media, with users spending over 4 hours on average, according to the Digital in 2017, the 6th annual report of social media and digital trends released by Hootsuite and We Are Social.
The country also saw strong double digit growth in 2016. Internet and social media users grew by over 25%, up 13 million and 12 million respectively.
Mobile emerges as a fast-growing medium for the web. The platform accounts for 38% of web traffic in the Philippines, close to a third higher than 2016.
Global findings
In APAC, mobile data traffic leads significantly over other regions, with 4.12 billion gigabytes consumed, compared with 1.24 gigabytes from North Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Social media growth rates increased by over 50% year-on-year.
More than 1.5 billion people across APAC now use social media on a monthly basis, 95% of whom access social via mobile devices – the highest ratio in the world.
As a result, organizations in APAC should plan to transform their communications strategy to increase customer engagement and real-time interaction across the customer journey.
“One of the greatest opportunities of a digitally connected world is the ability to have immediate conversations, wherever and whenever customers want. Social media not only enables organizations to amplify its brand, but also build trust, credibility and human relationships at scale. It is now as much the responsibility of the top executive as the social media manager,” said Roger Graham, senior director, Growth and Marketing, APAC, Hootsuite.
“Half of the world’s population is now online, which is a testament to the speed with which digital connectivity is helping to improve people’s lives. The increase in internet users in developing economies is particularly encouraging,” said Simon Kemp, We Are Social. “Given this latest data, it’s probably time for us to stop referring to social as ‘new media’, and integrate it more seamlessly into our day-to-day activities.”
The report compiles data from the world’s largest studies of online behavior, conducted by organisations including GlobalWebIndex, GSMA Intelligence, Statista, and Akamai in a comprehensive state of social media reference. The 2016 report has seen nearly 70,000 downloads and 2.5 million reads on SlideShare to date.
