Philippines now among top 10 Twitter nations; Jakarta most active Twitter city

• Officially dubbed the ‘social media capital of the world’ in 2011
• US still dominates Twitter nations but growth is higher abroad

FACEBOOK may still rule the Philippine social networking scene, but if a new study by social media monitor Semiocast serves as any indication, its claim no longer remains unchallenged.
 
According to the firm’s global poll which analyzed 517 million Twitter profiles, the Philippines now has around 9.5 million registered users on the micro-blogging site. This puts the country in the 10th spot in the worldwide rankings trailing Spain and staying one rung ahead of Turkey.
 
At the height of Tuesday’s intense rain and flooding all over the country, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos trooped to Twitter to spread critical flood information, as well as to mobilize rescue and relief operations.
 
“Even as the torrential rains rendered several families stranded and helpless, with flooded homes and without electricity, we saw how people found their mobile phones — and mobile Internet — especially useful to stay connected, tweeting for help for loved ones stuck elsewhere, and even for complete strangers trapped on their rooftops,” said Smart chief wireless advisor Orlando Vea.
 
“This is certainly good news, but, frankly, not really surprising. Filipinos have always been active in social media and we are increasingly using mobile phones to tweet or post on Facebook.”
 
Officially dubbed the “social media capital of the world” in 2011 the Philippines reportedly has around 93.9% of its 40-million strong Internet population on Facebook.
 
It surpassed more progressive countries in large part because of the affordability of gadgets and the accessibility of Internet services made available by local telcos.
 
The survey also revealed the United States now represent 27.4% of all Twitter users, down from 28.1% in January. In June 2012, these users posted 25.8% of all public tweets: the United States still dominate Twitter nations but growth is higher abroad (click chart to enlarge).
 
The registration rate is still very high in Brazil, which grew from 33.3 million in January to 41.2 million in July 2012. Brazilians now represent 8% of all Twitter accounts, but only 6.6% of all public tweets posted in June, which may account for different usage patterns of Twitter.
 
The two largest cities in Brazil rank among the top 20 cities in terms of tweets: São Paulo ranks 4th and Rio de Janeiro ranks 16th.
 
Japan, which lost to Brazil its second rank in terms of number of user profiles in January, recorded the second slowest growth in the top 50 countries (only +17% in six months, after South Korea which grew by a mere 16%).
 
Yet, the country remains the second most active country in terms of posted tweets: in June 2012, 10.6% of all public tweets were posted from Japan, while Japanese users represent 6.7% of all Twitter users. As a result, Japanese remains the second most used language on Twitter, after English.
 
The gap between the UK (4th) and Indonesia (5th) is narrowing. These countries now account for 32.2 million and 29.4 million user profiles respectively.
 
The following countries are India, Mexico, Canada, Spain and the Philippines. France, where Semiocast is headquartered, accounts for 7.3 million user profiles (1.4% share, 18th country), down from 1.6% share in January.
 
The study revealed that users from Jakarta were the most active within all cities ranked by the number of posted tweets. Using Semiocast’s technology, 27% of all public tweets were geo-localized at the city level (click chart to enlarge).
 
More than 2% of all these tweets were posted from the capital of Indonesia, witnessing the activity of Twitter in the country. Bandung, its second largest metropolitan area, ranked 6th.
 
Unsurprisingly, Tokyo ranks second. London ranked third, and the next city in the UK is Manchester and accounts for about 0.4% of all public tweets geo-localized at the city level.
 
The first US city is New York and only ranked 5th. As a sign that Twitter grew out of its homeland, San Francisco, where the company is headquartered, represent less than 0.2% of all tweets geo-localized at the city level.
 
Arabic usage continues to grow on Twitter: it is now the 6th language with 2.8% of all public tweets posted in June 2012. As another sign of this growth, Riyadh is now the 10th most active city, and the number of registered users in Saudi Arabia grew by +93% in six months, reaching 2.9 million. – Newsbytes.ph