The Ten Nations Where Facebook Rules The Internet

In 10 countries, more than 86% of users are on Facebook. That kind of dominance is rare for any company.

Facebook has 600 million members worldwide and continues to grow. It faces the same challenge that Google does in continuing its meteoric rise. Google has never really gotten more than 20% market share in China. That market is dominated by local search engine Baidu (NASDAQ: BIDU). Google also faces stiff competition against local sites in Japan and Russia and has probably peaked in large Western nations.  Meanwhile, the US government and EU has begun to question whether the search engine giant has become a monopoly.

Facebook has challenges of its own outside its home market. Use of Facebook is curtailed in China. Other nations such as Singapore have tried to block the site as well.  Social network sites including Facebook and Twitter played a critical communications role in the recent uprisings in the Middle East. That will not endear them to some of the regimes in that region.

According to data provided by web analytics firm comScore, Facebook’s market share in some countries is extremely high, although the numbers of Internet users compared with the overall population is very small. Eighty-seven percent of online visitors in Peru use Facebook, but only 27% of the people there have Internet access.

24/7 Wall St. looked at the ten countries in which Facebook has tremendous dominance of the online market. Most are concentrated in Latin America or Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines and Indonesia. There is no obvious explanation for this except that some of these markets are among the first where Facebook introduced its service.

Facebook’s overall presence in the US is smaller than it is in the nations on our list. Inside Facebook reported late last year that “The overall penetration level of the US has continued to creep up through monthly volatility” and now stands at 43.8 percent.  Facebook’s growth in America may continue rapidly, if the ten countries on this list are an indication of its potential

For the sake of comparison, 24/7 Wall St. has also included the penetration of LinkedIn and Twitter in the countries listed on “Ten Nations Where Facebook Rules The Internet.” Twitter has 5% to 15% online penetration is most of the nations, although it moves toward 20% in some. LinkedIn’s presence in most is very small.

24/7 used data from comScore, Inside Facebook, New Media Trend Watch, and ZDNet to do its analysis.

These are the  Ten Nations Where Facebook Rules The Internet

10. Venezuela
> Facebook: 86.2%
> Twitter: 21.0%
> LinkedIn: 3.2%
> Internet Use: 37.7%

Venezuela has the third highest rate of Twitter use among Internet users.  According to research firm comScore, 21% of Venezuela’s Internet users have Twitter accounts.  The only countries with higher percentages are Indonesia and Brazil.  America, by comparison, has a usage rate of 12%, the eleventh highest.  Social media also plays a large role in Venezuelan politics.  Hugo Chavez, the country’s president, has 1.5 million Twitter followers.  He is the second-most followed political figure, behind only Barack Obama.

9. Colombia
> Facebook: 86.9%
> Twitter: 14.6%
> LinkedIn: 3.3%
> Internet Use: 48.7%

More than 86% of Colombians visited a social networking site  in September, with Facebook leading the category. Visitors averaged 4.6 hours on the site during the month. Nearly 7 out of 10 Colombians visited a photo sharing site in September 2010 led by Facebook.com. Colombia is the fastest-growing Internet market in Latin America, growing 31% in the past year to reach 11.8 million unique visitors in September 2010, according to comScore. Facebook is by far the most popular social networking site in the country, with visitors having spent an average of 4.6 hours on the site during one month, of a total 20.4 hours spent online.

8. Peru
> Facebook: 87.2%
> Twitter: 12.5%
> LinkedIn: 4.6%
> Internet Use: 27%

Although a large portion of Peru’s Internet users are involved with social networking websites, it has a relatively small minority of people who use the Internet at all.  As of January 2011, only 27% of Peruvians were online, one of the lowest rates among the Latin American countries.  Peru also had the second slowest growth among Latin American countries of Internet users in 2010, according to Inside Facebook.  The only country to have slower growth was Brazil.

7. Indonesia
> Facebook: 87.5%
> Twitter: 22.0%
> LinkedIn: 1.3%
> Internet Use: 12.3%

Social network penetration in Indonesia is the third greatest in Southeast Asia as of the beginning of 2011, at 90% of those people online.  According to comScore, the country’s high adoption rates are due “almost exclusively” to Facebook.  In January 2011, 22% of Indonesian Internet users visited Twitter, the fourth-greatest share among all countries.  Indonesia, however, has the smallest percentage of Internet users among the countries on this list — 12.3%.

6. Malaysia
> Facebook: 88.4%
> Twitter: 10.8%
> LinkedIn: 2.9%
> Internet Use: 64.6%

Malaysia has the second-highest social network penetration in Southeast Asia, with 91%.  One of the most increasingly popular social-networking activities in the country is photo-sharing on sites such as Facebook.  From 2009 to 2010, the popularity of online photo-sharing increased by 57% in Malaysia.  This is the second greatest percentage among Southeast Asian countries.

5. Argentina
> Facebook: 89.2%
> Twitter: 18.0%
> LinkedIn: 6.4%
> Internet Use: 64.4%

Facebook has become extremely popular in Argentina recently.  As of May 2011, Argentina’s penetration rate was 89.2%.  27.8% of minutes spent online in Argentina are spent on social networks, making the category the second most popular online destination.  The first is portals.

4. Chile
> Facebook: 90.2%
> Twitter: 14.3%
> LinkedIn: 5.9%
> Internet Use: 50%

Chile has among the highest rates of Internet use among Latin American countries, with 50% of Chileans online.  According to comScore, 28.5% of all minutes spent online in Chile are spent on social networking sites, up 8.9 percentage points from the previous year.  This makes it the most popular activity online based on “minutes used.”

3.Turkey
> Facebook: 90.9%
> Twitter: 16.6%
> LinkedIn: 3.4%
> Internet Use: 45%

Turkey has the highest Facebook penetration among all the Eurasian countries, with a rate of 90.9%.  The second highest is the UK, with 81.7%.  Internet users in Turkey also spend the third greatest amount of time on social networking sites among all nations, behind only Russia and Israel.  The average Turkish social network visitor spends 7.6 hours a month on social networking sites.

2. Israel
> Facebook: 91.0%
> Twitter: 5.0%
> LinkedIn: 6.4%
> Internet Use: 71.6%

Israel has the highest rate of Internet use among the countries on this list, with 71.6% of the country’s population being “plugged in.”  It is also very involved with Facebook.  Besides having the second highest rate of Facebook usage among Internet users, Israelis spend the second most amount of time on social networking sites, behind only Russia.  Israel’s social network users spend an average of 9.2 hours on social network sites a month.

1. Philippines
> Facebook: 93.9%
> Twitter: 16.1%
> LinkedIn: 1.9%
> Internet Use: 29.7%

Social network penetration is incredibly high in the Philippines, reaching 95%.  Facebook is the country’s most popular website, more so than Google, and has a penetration rate of 93.9%.  The Philippines is also the eighth most popular country for Twitter use on a global scale, with a penetration rate of 16.1%.  The popularity of photo sharing has increased by 46% in the country in one year, largely due to Facebook.  Social networking is so popular among Filipinos, the country has been nicknamed “The Social Networking Capital of the World.”

Charles Stockdale and Douglas A. McIntyre