Indians lag behind in online social networking

Internet users in the country may be growing substantially, but when it comes to networking online, India has been placed among the nations with least exposure to social networking sites in the Asia-Pacific region.

The US-based internet marketing research firm comScore in a report has said that only 60.3 per cent of internet users in India are used to social networking sites, making it one of the Asia-Pacific countries with least exposure to the activity.

In terms of the penetration of social networking sites, India is ahead of Japan (50.9 per cent), China (45.6 per cent) and Taiwan (42.4 per cent).

According to the report, Singapore has the highest number of social networking site users at 74.3 per cent in the region, followed by Australia (68.3 per cent), South Korea (68 per cent) and Malaysia (66.6 per cent).

Hong Kong and New Zealand have the same per centage of such users at 62.8 per cent, the report noted.

However, comScore said that the number of visitors to social networking sites has increased by 51 per cent in India.

In India, the number of internet users visiting such sites rose by 51 per cent to 19.37 million in December 2008, the report said. The number of visitors stood at just 12.8 million in December 2007.

"Social networking continued to grow strongly in India this past year... Despite the strong growth... It showed below average penetration and engagement in the Asia-Pacific region," comScore's executive vice president Will Hodgman said in a statement.

There is certainly room for several players in the social networking space in India, the sites that have the right blend of having both a strong brand and cultural relevance would be best positioned for future growth, Hodgman added.