Taken from Yahoo website
Facebook is the most popular site in Singapore, according to web traffic and ranking tool Alexa. (AFP File Photo)
Do you share daily events with your friends, upload photos of your holiday trip, poke your friends, and indulge in an online game — all on one website? If you do, you are likely to be a Facebook user.
Statistics from Facebook’s Advertising tool and Singapore’s census of population shows that 48.2 per cent of Singaporeans own a Facebook account, making the island one of the most Facebook-savvy countries in Asia. As of December 15, 2010, there were 2.46 million Facebook users and an estimated 5.10 milllion people living in Singapore.
While it is generally more accurate to obtain data using the number of internet users instead of the entire population, such up-to-date information is difficult to get.
The Palo Alto-based social networking giant saw a 21.8 per cent increase in sign-ups in the country from April to December 2010. In April, Singapore had 2.02 million Facebook users, and the number is expected to continue rising steadily next year. In July 2009, there were only 1.38 million users in Singapore.
Teenagers aged 14-17 in Singapore make up one tenth of the pie while the majority comes from the 25-34 age group, which has 824,000 users, according to statistics from CheckFacebook.
In an interview with Yahoo! Singapore, 28-year-old ads designer Joel Tai, who joined Facebook 3 years ago, said he spends at least 21 hours each week on the social networking site.
“I spend roughly 21 hours a week on Facebook, and I usually check out ‘pages’ and read friends’ updates. I joined Facebook because I foresee it as the next big thing to ‘socialise’ and even find long-lost friends,” he said.
According to Facebook's Advertising tool, there were 2.46 million users living in Singapore as of December 15. (Screenshot from Facebook site)
Facebook is currently the dominant social networking site in Singapore. According to web traffic and ranking tool Alexa, it’s the most popular website in Singapore, followed by Google, and then YouTube.
In May 2008, Friendster was still the most popular social network in Singapore with 907,000 monthly unique visitors as compared to Facebook at 533,000, according to comScore.
Friendster was almost two times bigger than Facebook at that time, but before long, a stunning and rapid fall from grace meant it was soon overtaken by Facebook. Many made the transition when online games started to gain traction on Facebook.
Singaporeans’ near obsession with Facebook has made local companies and government agencies jump on the bandwagon. A Straits Times report in February this year revealed that at least 41 of the 81 People’s Action Party (PAP) Members of Parliament are on Facebook, up from 25 the same month a year ago.
Similar to Barack Obama’s election in 2008, the main objective was “to boost its cyber-presence at a time when younger people are spending more time on the Internet”.
Singapore’s Facebook penetration rate is on par with Hong Kong at 48.3 per cent. In July 2010, Hong Kong had 3.41 million Facebook users while its latest June 2010 population data stands at 7.06 million.
On the other hand, technologically-advanced Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea have much lower Facebook penetration rates — 1.42 per cent and 5.14 per cent respectively.
In fact, Japan’s Mixi and mobile-only social network Mobage Town and South Korea’s Cyworld are more popular than Facebook. These local social networking sites are designed to suit their respective language, culture and online habits.
17-year-old high school student Gyu-min Yee from Republic of Korea agrees that Facebook is not a household name in his country.
“Facebook is not popular at all in South Korea. Most of us use Cyworld, a social networking website by Nate, a Korean web portal,” he tells Yahoo! Singapore in an e-mail reply.
Will Singaporeans make the switch if a home-grown company were to develop a social networking site that has the same functionalities as Facebook, but more suited to the local culture?