Google, Social Media are Huge in Asia Pacific, with Korea Leading the Way
In two separate reports from comScore and Nielsen, Google is shown to boast the most unique visitors of any Internet property in Asia Pacific, while Koreans are revealed to be the most active (and most positive) Asia-Pacific demographic when it comes to social media.
According to the most recent numbers from comScore, of the 492.8 million unique members of the online population in Asia Pacific, Google managed to attract 55 percent, or 270.0 million of them in May. Each spent an average of 120.7 minutes on Google sites during the month, while the average pages per visitor was 171 and the average visits per visitor was 18.8.
Microsoft followed behind with 218.5 million unique visitors, with each spending an average of 122.4 minutes on its sites during May, visiting 55 pages and making 10.2 visits during the month.
Yahoo was third with 204.9 million unique visitors, with each spending an average of 151.4 minutes on its sites, visiting 204 pages and making 19.6 visits during May.
Baidu.com, China’s leading search engine, was fourth with 176.8 million visitors, with each spending an average of 58.4 minutes on its sites, viewing 128 pages and making 20.1 visits during the month.
Tencent, a Chinese Internet portal, ranked fifth with 174.1 million visitors, with each spending an average of 394.9 minutes on its sites, visiting 716 pages and making 39.4 visits during May. Besides the number of total unique visitors, Tencent led all its competitors in all other categories.
SINA Corporation, Alibaba.com, Sohu.com, Facebook and NetEase.com rounded out the top 10 list of Internet properties in Asia Pacific, by total unique visitors.
When broken down by individual markets, comScore found that Google led the way in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam. Yahoo led the way in Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan. Microsoft was the top property in Australia, while Tencent led the way in China, Facebook led the way in the Philippines and NHN Corporation led the way in South Korea.
Nielsen recently unveiled its findings from a recent survey of social media usage in Asia Pacific, where online product reviews are the third most trusted source of information for purchase decisions, ranking just behind family and friends. “This is particularly so for purchases of consumer electronics, cosmetics and cars – products where consumers are most likely to base their purchase decisions on online product reviews,” the company’s blog post notes.
When writing reviews, Koreans were most likely to share positive product experiences, followed by Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore and China.
Internet users in Japan are the heaviest bloggers in the world, posting more than 1 million blogs per month. The country’s number of Twitter accounts is growing at a rapid pace, as the site’s number of unique Japanese visitors surged from 200,000 to more than 10 million in the past year.
By population, Korea is one of the more engaged countries when it comes to social media, according to Nielsen. Naver, the country’s most popular search portal, attracts 95 percent of the Internet population in Korea each month. Twitter grew 1,900 percent in May 2009, as social media continues to grow thanks partly to elections and mobile social networking.
“The findings highlight, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that social media is here to stay and needs to be taken seriously by the broader business community, from the CMO to the CEO,” said Megan Clarken, managing director of Nielsen’s online business in Asia Pacific.
Sources:
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/global/social-media-dominates-asia-pacific-internet-usage/
