GlobalWebIndex Social Media Landscape Findings

13th December 2018 Scott Harvey

GlobalWebIndex has released its report on social media trends for 2018. It comes alongside the ‘Devices’ report, which GDI began to cover yesterday.

The report finds that 98% of digital consumers (aged 16-64 from outside China) are social media users, including 94% of 55-64 year olds. Users spend an average on 2 hours 22 minutes on social platforms and messengers combined.

Facebook and YouTube both count around 80% of internet users in their MAU, while WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger both count around 60%. LinkedIn, Snapchat, Skype and Pinterest all had 20-30% of digital consumers in their MAU.

In China, WeChat was the app with the highest MAU – around 80% of digital consumers use the platform. Baidu Tieba and Qzone boast 72% and 55% respectively. 23% of Chinese consumers are active on Facebook.

A country-by-country breakdown provides some interesting insights. Only 66% of Swiss internet users are active on Facebook, for example, compared with 82% of Danes.

93% of Indian consumers use YouTube, versus 55% of Ghanaian and Nigerian consumers. The figure rises to 96% in Colombia and The Philippines.

Only 1% of Japanese consumers report using Facebook Messenger, despite 37% using the social platform. 49% use Twitter and 33% use Instagram.

In the USA, only 18% of consumers use Facebook Messenger. This is significantly different from the UK, where 59% use the service.

GDI will be covering more chapters from both GlobalWebIndex reports in the coming week. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter to stay updated!