Indonesia leads Foursquare usage in Asia

Indonesia is the biggest user of Foursquare in Southeast Asia according to a post from Singapore-based social media blogger Aaron Koh. According to Koh, the service is proportionally more popular in Singapore and Thailand which enjoy the the highest member rates compared to their respective Facebook populations.

Quoting statistics from appapeal.com, Koh pulled together the table below covering the major web markets in Southeast Asia with the addition of Australia.

It is inevitable that Indonesia boasts the highest number of users and Singapore has the highest ration of users. Indonesia is a huge country (population of more than 220 million) with a low but growing rate of digital engagement while Singapore has a far smaller but more engaged population with greater affluence and access to and usage of technology.

It is surprising to see that Thailand is listed with more users than many of its larger neighbours, Australia in particular, while its engagement rate (vs Facebook) is higher that many others too. I’ve long been aware of Foursquare’s loyal following in the country, while the growth of Twitter is likely to be related to its popularity.

Going forward, India is likely to be the market to watch as social media and internet access continue to rise amongst its huge population its low ratio and numbers are surely set to grow. However, the lack of comparative statistics make it difficult to delve any further into how the service is developing in the respective markets.

The use of Facebook population as a metric rather than actual population is interesting. Facebook’s position as the world’s largest social network makes it a barometer for internet usage in some parts of the world and reflects the nature of today’s online media consumption. Here it is cleverly used as a metric to show Foursquare engagement within its target market in each country.

Foursquare, like Twitter, is frustrating for followers of digital trends as it steadfastly refuses to release public user figures while many research firms continually ignore smaller Asian markets, meaning that the true number of users is unknown for a number of countries. With that in mind, there is no way to verify these statistics, however, as a regular reader of Koh’s blog, I take them in good faith.

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