In India, Orkut still beats Facebook
Sounds surprising, right?
If you are among those users who started off with Orkut and then moved to Facebook over the past 2-3 years, this might be difficult to believe, considering all the problems and issues with some features in Orkut, not to mention the total lack of privacy.
However, statistics from leading internet traffic measurement firm comSCORE seem contrary to that belief. The report, which covered social networking activity in the Asia-Pacific region in February 2010, put Orkut ahead of Facebook with 46.8% of India’s internet users logging in to Google’s social networking site.
In countries like Singapore, Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Vietnam, Facebook remains top dog. China was excluded from this study, and in some countries, other brands had maximum user engagement, like mixi.jp (Japan), CyWorld (South Korea) and wretch.cc (Taiwan).
In the report, the user base comprised of internet users over 15 yrs of age who accessed these sites from home and work. However, it excluded visits from cyber cafes and mobile phones. Here are the stats from the report:
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Top Social Network in Individual Asia Pacific Markets by Percent Reach of Web Population February 2010 Total Internet Audience*, Age 15+ – Home & Work Locations |
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| Top Social Network in Market | % Reach of Web Population | |
| Asia Pacific | Facebook.com | 14.9% |
| Philippines | Facebook.com | 84.5% |
| Australia | Facebook.com | 69.4% |
| Indonesia | Facebook.com | 84.9% |
| Malaysia | Facebook.com | 77.5% |
| Singapore | Facebook.com | 72.1% |
| New Zealand | Facebook.com | 63.6% |
| Taiwan | Wretch.cc | 62.5% |
| Hong Kong | Facebook.com | 62.6% |
| India | Orkut | 46.8% |
| South Korea | CyWorld | 54.2% |
| Vietnam | Facebook.com | 18.4% |
| Japan | Mixi.jp | 18.9% |
*Excludes visitation from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
According to the study, 50.8% of the total online population in the Asia-Pacific region visited a social networking site in February 2010, translating into ~ 240.3 million visitors during the month.
It is possible that excluding visitors from mobile phones and PDAs has also skewed the results to an extent, given the number of users who access such sites from their phones thanks to inbuilt Facebook apps.
Overall though, Orkut has a greater reach and first mover advantage, and it is also possible that some users get intimidated by Facebook so they would rather remain on Orkut. Secondly, it largely depends on ‘what’ one does on these sites. I know of people who are addicted to some FB applications like Farmville, Mafia Wars and others, and can spend most of their day being on FB. Orkut on the other hand, took time to have third-party apps integrated with it’s site, but once it did so, I’ve seen an equally large number of users use those apps.
There are also those users who use these sites purely to get back in touch with old buddies, classmates and the like, and are rarely in the ‘active users’ list, surfacing once a while to accept a friend request or respond to birthday wishes.
Personally, I used Orkut for a couple of years before lack of privacy features and too many ‘fraaand’ requests / scraps from unknown people started pissing me off. Facebook has been good so far, but the lack of control regarding some privacy related features is not to my liking, so I’m reducing my FB usage too.
Do you prefer Orkut or Facebook?
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