Brazil, Indonesia, Philippines lead world in Facebook user growth

Facebook statistics service Socialbakers reports that Brazil, Indonesia and the Philippines registered the highest number of new sign-ups for the month of May.

The Socialbakers report said that Brazil registered 11.37 percent growth, while Southeast Asian neighbors Indonesia and the Philippines notched increases by 4.15 and 5.75 percent, respectively.

Other Asian countries that landed in Socialbaker’s list of top growing countries are India, Malaysia, Thailand and Japan.

This new report is a great follow up to recent reports painting the Philippines as the world’s social networking capital, as well as a TNS study released last week that found that increased social networking activities by Filipinos have propelled mobile internet usage in the country.

According to a GMA News article:

In yet another proof of how Filipinos are addicted to social networking, a recent study by insight and consultancy firm TNS showed that Filipinos’ social media frenzy are driving the growth of mobile Internet in the Philippines.

According to TNS’ Digital Life and Mobile Life surveys for 2011, nine out of 10 Filipinos who surf the Internet on their phones have accessed social networking sites, a sharp 68 percent increase from 2010 figures.

Moreover, mobile access to microblogging sites such as Twitter jumped 325 percent in the past year, signifying Filipinos’ growing penchant for sharing their thoughts online.

Although SMS continues to dominate Filipinos’ usage of mobile devices, the study showed that multimedia and online capabilities (social networking, messaging, surfing, etc) have experienced tremendous growth.

On the personal computer front, the study found that social networking is quickly outpacing traditional e-mail platforms as the communication method of choice, with Filipinos spending a longer time on social networks (2.8 hours a week) than on catching up with e-mail messages (2.5 hours a week).

Of those who are active on social networks, the study found that on the average, Filipinos have 171 connections on social networks, with the 21 to 24 age bracket having the most friends online at 298.

In contrast, the world average for number of connections falls at only 120 friends.

Resurgence expected when classes reopen

Internet and social media activities in the Philippines are expected to swell this month when classes open anew in all the country’s elementary and high schools, and colleges and universities.

Students are among the most avid users of internet and social media, and their going into vacation from March to April may have been the reason why Socialbakers documented a decrease in the number of new Facebook users during the early part of the same period.