Social media platform management application and social media marketing agency, Hootsuite and We Are Social, reported that Filipinos ranked first as the world's heaviest internet users.
On their latest 200-page Digital 2019 report released on Thursday, they showed that internet users in the Philippines surpassed Thailand as the country that spends most the time online. The study was conducted in 2018 and is showed that Filipinos increased their average time online to 10 hours and two minutes from its last record of nine hours and 29 minutes in 2017.
The Philippines remained its global lead in time spent on social media. The report said that a Filipino spends an average of four hours and 12 minutes on social media. The Philippines' record is way above the global average of two hours and 16 minutes. The report also showed that most Filipinos preferred mobile internet in accessing the World Wide Web. On average, the Filipinos uses mobile internet for four hours and 58 minutes.
The Philippines ranks second behind Thailand in terms of mobile internet usage. The report also showed that about 70 percent of internet users in the country spend money on eCommerce platforms. The country's record is higher than the global average of 55 and 41 percent in terms of Commerce and Mobile banking, respectively. The 57 percent of the Philippines internet users use commerce platforms and 54 percent are users of mobile banking.
The report also said that Asia Pacific's social media users increased significantly as it reaches 218 million users in 2018. According to Roger Graham, Asia head of Hootsuite, said that Asia is one of the world's fastest-growing regions for internet and mobile usage, and with that comes a huge appetite for technological adoption, foreign investment, and digital innovation. He added that brands and companies are recognizing the opportunity as they demonstrate a strong sense of urgency to integrate digital and social media into their business.
Penny Wilson, Chief marketing officer of Hootsuite said that although social media came under increased scrutiny and saw diminished trust among users in 2018, people around the world are still spending more time on social media.
The report also concluded that Facebook remained the most popular social media platform globally after its monthly active users increased by 1.7 percent or around 37 million. Instagram, on the other hand, had 1 billion active users globally. Twitter's users dropped by 2.7 percent while Snapchat users fell by 12 percent.
