Social Networking Sites Popularity Comparison in Asia
by Nicholas Guan on August 27th, 2008To continue from my previous post “Facebook Penetration In Asia Pacific [2008]”, I’ve decided to do a small Google Insights test of how popular Facebook is searched on Google as compared to other social networking sites in Asia.
I’ve decided to compare it against just 1 other main competitor social networking site per country because the lines won’t be as messy as compared to a comparison with 3-4 other competitors.
Please also note that like Facebook, Google is not the number 1 search engine all around Asia as well… hence the data is not 100% accurate. This is especially so for countries like South Korea & China, where their local search engines (Naver & Baidu respectively) are utilised much more than Google. Yahoo! is also very widely used in Asia. This test is just a rough gauge of how popular Facebook and other social networks are.
The results starts from July 2007 and ends July 2008.
Here are the results:
China- Facebook Vs Xiaonei
Xiaonei is China’s version of Facebook and looks almost exactly like it. Though there’s a recent spike interest for Facebook in China, I doubt it’d have much impact on the chinese population as they are likely to stick to QQ, their Bulletin Board Systems and Xiaonei.
Hong Kong- Facebook Vs Xanga
Facebook appeals to the slightly older and western educated people in Hong Kong.
The motivation for Xanga, however, is far more reserved. For young Hong Kong secondary school students, it’s a way to express oneself and to passively share thoughts on things that matter to them amongst their inner circle – an evolution in some ways from personal blogging and instant messenging .
India- Facebook Vs Orkut
There are only 3.1m broadband users out of 60m internet users in India. My guess is that Facebook is probably too bandwidth heavy a social network site for the common Indian user as compared to Orkut. Unless Facebook comes up with a lite version for lower bandwidth countries like India, I guess the Indians will still be on Orkut for at least another year.
Indonesia- Facebook Vs Friendster
I think Indonesia faces similar issues with India in terms of broadband issues. Though Indonesia has 25m internet users, there are only 241k broadband users. In addition to this, Friendster has Bahasa Indonesia as a listed language. Therefore making Friendster a big draw for Indonesian users as english may be a problem for the common indonesian.
Japan- Facebook Vs Mixi
With great local social networking sites like Mixi, Gree and a very robust mobile social network site Mobagetown, it is no surprise why Facebook has not taken off in Japan. The Japanese are very interested in customizing their pages with skins, avatars and online items… something not available on Facebook. Most importantly, Facebook’s mobile version holds little to the mobile capabilities of japanese social networking site.
Malaysia- Facebook Vs Friendster
Although Facebook usage is increasing in Malaysia, this is only apparent for Malaysians and expats who are more westernized. Friendster’s dominance in Malaysia is due to its early market entry and more importantly, offers the Bahasa Malayu language which is the main language used in Malaysia.
Philippines- Facebook Vs Friendster
Friendster is so huge in Philippines that it accounts for 38.8% of Friendster users worldwide. Friendster, recognizing the low internet penetration in the country, decided to complement online advertising with a mobile phone text messaging service exclusively for Filipino users. Friendster also set up a Mobile Broadcast System, a chat application, between the web and mobile phones to extend the use of Friendster Mobile in the Philippines.
Singapore- Facebook Vs Friendster
No surprise that Facebook popularity is increasing in Singapore. For people who live in Singapore (that includes me), you’ve probably noticed Facebook appearing on the news and even on Prime Minister Lee’s national day rally speech. What surprises me is Friendster’s constantly strong results on the chart. I guess many people who moved on Facebook are still some what using Friendster as they still have a network of friends on it. In addition, there are also people who have yet to move on Facebook and are happily using Friendster still.
So don’t rule out Friendster just yet!
South Korea- Facebook Vs Cyworld
Like I explained earlier, Google is not the de facto search engine for a number of countries in Asia. This is especially so for South Korea. Google is probably only used by english speaking Koreans as Naver, Daum and Yahoo! Korea are top choices for Koreans to do their online searches. Therefore Facebook ranks higher than local social network king Cyworld in times of searches on Google.
To prove my point that Cyworld is THE social network for South Korea, over 44% of South Korea’s Population has a Cyworld account. Now beat that.
Thailand- Facebook Vs Hi5
Thai language availability plays a huge part for Hi5’s popularity in Thailand. As most Thais are not as fluent in English, their natural preference would be towards thai language sites. I also feel that Hi5 has a much easier to use interface as compared to Facebook and this could be another possibility why Thai residents on Hi5 would not want to switch to a more complicated interface on Facebook.
Vietnam- Facebook Vs Yahoo 360
The results here comparing Facebook and Yahoo 360 do not seem extremely far apart. In actual fact, they really are as Yahoo! is Vietnam’s top choice for online search, not Google. Also, why would you search for something Yahoo on Google?
The Vietnamese are very into blogging and hence Yahoo! 360 is far more attractive to them as it allows blogging. Currently, Yahoo! 360 is the top social network in Vietnam, followed by Cyworld Vietnam.
End Note:
For marketers who are looking to market on social networks in different parts of Asia, I hope my small test on social network search popularity on Google has enlighten you that Facebook is not the only social networking solution in Asia. Even in countries where Facebook is gaining huge popularity, the other players are still going strong and should not be left out completely.
And just in case people think I’m anti Facebook… I’m not! In fact, its my main choice for social networking. I’m just trying to debunk the myth that “Facebook is everything” 
Brian Koh 
Tania Chew 
August 27th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Would be interested in how Xing fares against FB and other sites in China. Hugely popular here in GZ.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
[…] » Social Networking Sites Popularity Comparison in Asia The Open Room Blog is a collaborative group blog authored by team members of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide in Singapore. (tags: socialmedia socialnetworking Facebook Google+Insights) […]
August 28th, 2008 at 12:29 am
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August 28th, 2008 at 8:07 am
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August 28th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Nicholas,
Great insight and although agree that the dataset may be skewed due to using goog insight, it is interesting to look at it directionally. In your opinion do you think that eventually FB will start to close this gap in the region?
August 28th, 2008 at 11:37 am
@Christian, Hey thanks for the comments! I think Facebook will continue its strong growth in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia… as their internet infrastructure is more robust and they have quite a number of english speaking people.
I also think the moment India’s broadband growth shoots up, they’ll start moving to Facebook unless Orkut manages to add more sticky… and more importantly, localized mobile features. India is crazy on mobile phones. Facebook needs to have a lite online and mobile version if they want to attract the majority of Indian users.
As for regions like Japan, South Korea and China, I highly doubt Facebook appeals to them because social media is used so much more differently there. Japan and South Korea’s social networks are very advanced and locally “sticky”. China on the other hand, is hot on Bulletin Board Systems. What’s also essential in these 3 countries is blogging… and Facebook does not have a proper blogging feature.
Even if Facebook localizes their content and functions to these markets in future, i doubt they’ll be in time to steal the market share away from local giants.
August 28th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
[…] to Nicholas Guan, an OgilvyOne social media researcher, the best social network reach Asians is not always Facebook […]
August 28th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Great bit of research there, and its certainly enlightening to note that Facebook ain’t what it is cooked up to be in Asia. Perhaps Singapore’s propensity for the English language and strong exposure to American Internet culture has resulted in a stronger growth in Facebook relative to our neighbours in Asia? Thanks for sharing this!
August 28th, 2008 at 10:13 pm
[…] vs. Xiaonei + a lot of questions Nicholas Guan did an interisting test on the popularity of Facebook compared to other market leading SNS in Asia. […]
August 28th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Hi Walter,
Thanks for the comments
Likewise, i think Singapore’s strong exposure to American Internet culture and high usage of the English language has naturally influenced Singaporeans into using Facebook.
And like how the US still has a high Myspace usage… Singapore has Friendster!
August 30th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Hey Nicholas, should I correct that Google is the absolute winner in online search in Vietnam and Cyworld Vietnam is not the second.
August 30th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
[…] Social networking sites popularity comparison in Asia - Facebook penetration in Asia Pacific […]
August 30th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Hi Jason,
Thanks for the feedback!Do you have any data on search and social networking in Vietnam that i can correct my insights?
September 5th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Hi Nicholas,
Thanks for sharing these insights. Great to get an idea of the differences across the APAC region. I am currently pulling together a training deck on what social media looks like in APAC in 2008 - so there are some great points in here to build on.
September 5th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Pleasure Lexy
Hope your training goes well!
September 9th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Good post Nicholas, It would would be interesting to see the stats with a mix of 3rd or even 4th popular social networking sites (if any)
Cheers~
September 9th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Interesting comparisons.
I agree with Christian that using Google Insights will skew the research. So how highly correlated is search with usage?
September 9th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
And can you believe it guys?! I played a little more with Insight and it seems that Facebook is more important than the following…
1) Sex
2) Money
3) Finance
4) Property
5) Stocks
September 11th, 2008 at 11:33 am
haha, Nic has already established that the research is not 100% accurate. mainly because of the factor that Google is not the only search engine that people use.
I guess if we can draw anything away from this piece of excellent research, is that people who are Google users, are searching for Facebook more than other social networks.
It’s great topline stuff that addresses the interests or initial trends on the Internet.
September 12th, 2008 at 3:10 am
You asians are big time losers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
September 12th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
hahaha, our first flamer. we’ve made it guys! think we should give “Asians Suck” a prize.
might send him/her a mail order bride -)
September 12th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
yes finally our first flamer
September 25th, 2008 at 12:16 am
Hello. I happened to reach here unawares searching facebook.
This research is awsome.
And tell you what, it seems frankly not so good for us koreans to prefer cyworld. I can’t help but point out this:
The uses for which we do it have changed to showing off how many friends someone has, from just managing the connections well.
October 13th, 2008 at 4:48 am
Nicholas,
Awesome article - I sort of had a similar picture about state of social networking in Asia in my mind, but this adds a lot of interesting details.
What about the remaining countries of Southeast Asia, e.g. Cambodia, Laos, Bangladesh - do you have any insights about situation with online social networking there? …As for Burma, it probably makes no sense to ask about it, right?
October 14th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Hi BarCode,
Thanks for the comment!
Unfortunately I do not have insights on social networking for the countries you have specified. I think its better to let those countries grow in terms of internet usage before more research is done on it.
October 17th, 2008 at 7:42 pm
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